Church pews are sitting empty. Can they become affordable housing?

Northwood Presbyterian Church is, in a sense, a kind of home. People have gotten married in the cinder block building. They’ve sat with their kids in the pews and watched the Rev. Chris Deacon deliver sermons beneath the stained-glass cross for years. But as the 15,000-square-foot church, which sits on seven acres on the edge of Silver Spring, Md., has seen its congregation shrink from 400 at its first service in 1958 to just above 100 in recent years, Deacon and his colleagues believe the church could be used to house people in a more literal way.