As we wrap up our year-long 50th anniversary (Jubilee Year) this month, we honor two of our instrumental founders, Reverend Gordon Cosby and Bill Branner. Gordon was the visionary who formed a new type of church and served the communities’ needs. Bill Branner was the one who made the visions a reality. This is a story of vision and operational intellect that lives on today as Jubilee works to open the nation’s first urban rooftop aquaponics farm associated with affordable housing and a comprehensive workforce development program dedicated to returning citizens and other innovations to improve the lives of the people and families that we work with.
50th Anniversary Stories
Bill Branner: Jubilee’s “Dream Wrapper”
John W. “Bill” Branner was one of the early members of The Church of the Saviour, formed in 1947. He later served as the first president of Jubilee Housing for 30 years and chairman of the board for several years. His business sense and devotion helped found and build Jubilee Housing and numerous other organizations while ensuring the church remained successful and spawning other ministries that continue to this day.
One day after graduating from high school, Bill moved from Staunton, Virginia, to Washington, DC, over 150 miles away. His humble upbringing didn’t deter him from aiming for the stars. He was hand-selected to be a personal assistant for two Generals, one during World War II and one during the Korean War. Between Branner’s military stints, he graduated from Strayer University with a degree in business administration.
On November 1, 1973, three church members—Terry Flood, Barbara Moore, and Carolyn Banker Cresswell—who knew nothing about housing, decided to purchase two dilapidated fifty-year-old apartment buildings; thus, Jubilee Housing was born. With the buildings having names like The Ritz and The Mozart, who would have thought they had over 940 housing code violations and were teeming with frustrated, underserved residents? However, for these three women and The Church of the Saviour church members, these deteriorating buildings and their residents would transform their lives, their congregation, and Washington, DC. It took 50,000 hours of volunteer time and more than $750,000 in financing to clean out the garbage and repair all the code violations to create 90 affordable units in those two buildings.
Bill was the heart and soul of the Jubilee Housing mission for many years since its inception. Bill saw the importance of helping preserve a dwindling supply of decent and affordable housing to financially disadvantaged households in the Adams Morgan neighborhood. As one of the group’s top administrators, Bill was largely credited with shaping the goals of Jubilee Housing, which included the acquisition, management, and renovation of the properties. Known for possessing sharp business acumen, he helped stretch the financial contributions the organization received while instituting a business model that attracted financial support from corporate donors.
“He was a person of deep faith,” Jubilee Housing Executive Director Jim Knight said. “He knew the importance of a stable home and how absolutely critical housing is as a platform for people to pursue larger life goals.” (Washington Post, 12/30/06)
Bill was the man behind the scenes, working tirelessly to imagine the structures and operational systems that would help put a solid foundation under the mission. He was the go-to guy, the tactician who knew how to help bring others’ callings and missions to life and realized for the long term. His careful attention to detail, coupled with Gordon Cosby’s vision for a compassionate and restorative community that would put those with the least resources first, made the dream of Jubilee Housing a real possibility. Values and traits that survive and fuel Jubilee’s mission and work today.
Bill was a man of rare substance and depth of caring. Simply put, he loved people, and he loved finding ways to encourage and nurture people’s dreams. Cosby, who worked closely with Bill over some 55 years, described him at the time of Bill’s death in December 2006 as the “dream wrapper.” Bill was the one who intuitively knew what the right legal and corporate wrappings would be for the churches and missions that emerged from The Church of the Saviour.
“He kept us legal,” Gordon said. “And he just had an innate sense of what sort of structures would enable our little seeds of ideas to grow, what would nurture and sustain the dreams instead of stifling them as so many structures do.”
As chair of the board of directors, Bill was instrumental in helping launch the Campaign for the New Jubilee, a multimillion dollar effort to renovate seven Jubilee properties and expand resident services. He often remarked how thrilled he was to have ‘lived long enough’ to see the properties that he loved so dearly be renovated and preserved as affordable housing for another generation of Adams Morgan residents.
Bill received several honors for his community service, including the 1991 President’s Medal of the Catholic University of America and the 1995 Patricia and James Rouse Award for housing service. Jubilee Housing named its administrative suite in the renovated Ritz building after Bill in memory of his 33 years of faithful service.