YWCA finds buyer for 6th Street facility in City of God church

YWCA looks to downsize into ‘mobile advocacy.’ City of God looks for a more permanent home. Some YWCA supporters question whether sale undercuts its mission, sullies its legacy near downtown

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YWCA FINDS BUYER FOR 6^TH STREET FACILITY IN CITY OF GOD CHURCH

City of God Church, a congregation that has been meeting at Lafayette Christian School in recent years, is in the process of buying the YWCA Greater Lafayette facility north of downtown Lafayette, church and YWCA officials say.

Expected to close in May, the sale of the 34,000-square-foot building opened in 1975 at 605 N. Sixth St. comes as the YWCA looks to downsize and move toward what executive director Lindsey Mickler calls “mobile advocacy.”

The pending sale of the YWCA home comes at a time when the nonprofit, like so many others, is sorting through the threat of federal funding cuts Mickler says aren’t a matter of if, but when. Mickler said that 53% of the YWCA funding comes from government grants for work with its residential emergency shelter and programs aimed in the fields of sexual assault, domestic violence, child advocacy and providing access to preventative and diagnostic breast cancer screenings.

(Photo: Dave Bangert)

“It’s not because of that,” Mickler said of a building sale process first contemplated several years ago. “But it really is a timely opportunity when federal funding is at severe risk. Any changes in our funding will have a ripple impact, not only on the Lafayette community, but every community we serve.”

The YWCA will move some operations into the YWCA Domestic Violence Shelter, which will remain open across the street. Other offices will go into the YWCA’s Dr. Kelley & Patricia Carr Advocacy Center on Sixth Street. Mickler said other programs, including its boutique-style Dress for Success program and a women’s wellness program that reaches 39 counties, will operate in what she called “a hybrid approach with mobile advocacy.”

“We don't necessarily need four walls to provide the services for the programming that we provide,” Mickler said. “Our reasons have remained the same as to why we have pursued this path.”

Into May, the YWCA will continue to host some recreational activities, including noon pickup basketball games and pickleball, in its gym. The facility also has a 1,300-square-foot shared commercial and commissary kitchen space for rent for food trucks and other culinary entrepreneurs. Mickler said the YWCA has been having conversations with people who come to 605 N. Sixth St. about the changes coming.

The YWCA listed the building in 2024, after two years of studying whether the building – one Mickler described as “long on hallways, short on offices” – fit the organization’s needs or was pulling from a focus on programs dealing with domestic violence, women’s wellness and racial justice.

Mickler said that City of God emerged among several other potential buyers that showed interest.

Eric Roseberry, lead pastor at City of God, said the church had been looking for a permanent location in recent years.

Roseberry said the congregation started in Lafayette in 2009, first meeting in the basement of a bank building in downtown, the Lafayette Theater and space at the Holiday Inn City Centre on South Street. The church started holding services at Lafayette Christian School, on North 26^th Street in Lafayette, seven years ago.