LEAP Housing A leap of faith provides

By Gaye Bunderson

Expensive houses, big sales, large commissions.

The real estate field can be very lucrative, and Bart Cochran did well as a real estate agent. But a large segment of the population was missing from the equation. “I was successful with people who have the means to buy houses but not with people who have barriers,” he said.

As the cost of apartments and homes in the Treasure Valley continues its upward climb, decent housing remains out of reach for many. Couple that with some of the lowest wages in the country and the Gem State presents a problem for affordable housing for a significant portion of its citizens.

In the midst of his real estate career, Cochran did some traveling to other countries when he was able, and some of the things he saw first-hand shook him up and got him thinking.

“I had a crisis of faith,” Cochran said, “and was wrestling with God. It was a combination of two things. In traveling to other places, I got a visual view of poverty; I could see it. But here, it’s tucked away.”

When he saw poverty close up, Cochran’s original thought was, “‘Maybe I should be a doctor or a nurse to be able to help people’. But God made it clear that I was supposed to be using my real estate skills in a different direction.” Thus began the story of what was ultimately to become LEAP Housing. Back in the U.S., in 2008, Cochran started a non-profit. Originally, the organization focused on priorities such as clean water, micro-lending, and a volunteer center to “coach would-be founders of projects,” Cochran said. It was named LEAP, which stood for Love, Empowerment and Partnership. “It then took a very firm turn to housing,” said its founder and CEO. The former acronym now stands more for the leap of faith Cochran took in undertaking a non-profit using his real estate skills – this time for people who don’t have half a million dollars to plunk down on a residence. God gave him a vision, and it seemed God was saying, “I can use my skills this way. I don’t need to be a nurse or doctor. You underestimate your own skill set when it’s right under your nose.”

LEAP Housing refers to itself as “faith-informed” rather than “faith-based,” because it has no statement of faith on its website and does not limit its services within religious boundaries. It aims to serve whoever it can with affordable housing options.

A statement at leaphousing.org also reads, “We’re building hope, not just homes,” and Cochran explains it is bigger than the four walls of a residence. “We’re very technically good at building housing. But what happens to families and individuals when they are stably housed is they’re healthier, they pursue education, and they increase their income. We do the housing; hope helps the newly housed with all the other attributes that follow.”

LEAP Housing is a non-discriminatory program and also aids in helping newly arriving refugees find homes. Welcome Housing (for refugees) was one of LEAP’s first projects. Also, LEAP looks to two housing avenues for people: rentership and ownership.

One of the main emphases of LEAP is working with church communities to utilize unused land they may have available near the church. YIGBY is the acronym for the program that partners churches with people seeking a place to live. It stands for Yes in God’s Back Yard and centers around putting housing on excess church land, with the church seeing it as, “God’s land, not ours.” The YIGBY philosophy is counter to the Not in My Back Yard, or NIMBY, view of some who don’t want certain kinds of housing in their neighborhoods.

Some of the churches that have participated so far include Collister United Methodist Church in Boise and Lakeview Church of the Nazarene in Nampa.

Collister United Methodist was the first church to work with LEAP, and its pastor, Joseph Bankard, said he and his congregation are thrilled with the outcome. Staff and congregants were searching for a way to use the quarter acre plot in the church’s backlot for something of benefit to everyone in the neighborhood. A parishioner who worked as a fair housing attorney alerted Bankard to LEAP, and Bankard reached out to the non-profit in 2019. The wheels started turning and housing that was eventually named Taft Homes was set in motion. Now, there are two four-bedroom units with garages on the church’s formerly barren land.