APARTMENT hunters always have a wish list of things that will help them call a new place home — doormen, laundry rooms, southern exposures.
But for some people, faith guides real estate choices. Instead of bay windows and an in-house gym, their must-have may be a kosher kitchen, a short walk to church, room to roll out a prayer mat or like-minded roommates.
Community mattered to Jason Storbakken, 33, and his wife, Vonetta, 36, who wanted to share their lives with other followers of Christ, and not just for an hour on Sunday morning. So the couple started Radical Living, a Christian collective, in 2007 in a Brooklyn brownstone they bought in 2001 for $180,000, first rehabbing it to the tune of $80,000. To find members, they began “targeted marketing,” Mr. Storbakken said, advertising for roommates on Christian Web sites.
Today Radical Living is home to 20 adults, with several satellite apartments within a block of the brownstone. The word radical, the group’s Web site explains, means “relating to the root or origin,” and refers to the members’ aim “to return to primitive Christianity and to share their lives with others in a spirit of love and service.” Thus, Mr. Storbakken, faith “plays out in every area of your life, from the food you eat to your housing.”
The house is ecumenical, and there are Catholics and Protestants among the current residents, as well as varying levels of orthodoxy and an assortment of ages and backgrounds. The residents meet for weekly meals to discuss values and scripture. Sometimes they fast together. On these warm summer days, Bible study takes place on the brownstone’s brick patio.
Justin Hilton, 21, arrived at the brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant on July 1. Mr. Hilton works at a video store in Park Slope, and moved from Crown Heights, where he shared an apartment with a friend. He now pays $500 a month to be a part of Radical Living.
A child of missionaries to West Africa, he grew up in communal situations, and he was seeking similar surroundings when he discovered Radical Living.
“Living here in this community is not just like I have people my age or into the same things as me,” he says. “It stretches you and makes you hopefully more selfless, living for something more than just your own comfort.”
He said that living where religion is as much a part of daily roommate life as making sure there’s milk in the fridge, means the principles of his faith are always in practice. “Church, when it’s once a week, you can turn it off,” Mr. Hilton said.
Prospective residents of Radical Living fill out an application, answering questions like “Why do you want to live in Christian community?” and “Our community emphasizes loving our neighbor. In what ways would you work to love your neighbors in Bedford-Stuyvesant?”
Rent is from $450 to $650, depending on the size of the room. Housemates contribute to a purse that covers pantry staples like tea and flour, and to charitable projects that the group agrees upon.
Conflicts are mediated using a method outlined in the Bible: “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”
“Christians are good moral people, “Mr. Storbakken said. “But you have the same issues with Christians as non-Christians when it comes to housing.”
Yoheved Rubenstein, 24, on the hunt for her first solo apartment, wanted to live in the thick of the action in Manhattan, among good restaurants, great bars and an arts scene.
But higher on the list were the demands of her religion. Ms. Rubenstein, who grew up in Scarsdale, N.Y., is a modern Orthodox Jew and adheres to kosher dietary rules. She is also shomer Shabbat — observing the Sabbath by not turning on electricity or using transportation, among other things.
Thus, her ideal apartment would be within walking distance of her temple. So before she went house-hunting, she went temple-hunting. Having decided on the Jewish Center on West 86th Street, she began looking on the Upper West Side.
“All my friends were asking why I wasn’t moving to the East Village,” she said, but “my Sabbath life is so important it totally changed the destination or location that I would choose to live in.
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