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Faith and poverty: A pastor's precarious life
- Homelessness: Real Stories, Real Solutions
- 50 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Pastor Dean "Dino" Antonucci lives in an RV in a church parking lot due to crushing medical debt and Central Oregon's soaring cost of living. His story reveals how even faith leaders face housing insecurity in America's affordability crisis
By DAVID DUDLEY
Pastor Dean Antonucci stood in his sister's living room in Redmond, staring into a cellphone mounted to a tripod. His congregation of five — including his wife, Teri, daughter, MaKayla, sister Christina Pickett and their friend, Brent Greenwood — sipped coffee and nibbled pastries as Antonucci studied the Bible and his notes.
Antonucci, pastor of Grace Fellowships of Central Oregon, broadcasts his sermons via YouTube and Facebook. First-time viewers wouldn't know that when he finishes his sermon, he doesn't return to a parsonage, the no-cost housing many churches offer to their pastors. Instead, he and his family return to a cramped RV they've called home for four years.
It was an unseasonably warm Sunday morning in February, just a few minutes before 10:30 a.m. Antonucci asked MaKayla to go live, then he launched into his sermon.
"If you continue in your faith, established and firm," he began, "and do not move away from the hope held out in the gospel, you will be forgiven your sins!"
"Amen!" Greenwood said.
Like an actor on the stage, Antonucci rides the waves of energy exchanged between him and his audience. He was quickly finding his groove.
"When you commit sin, it doesn't affect you," he continued, his voice rising and falling, creating the lilting rhythm that preachers use to bring the Word to life. "It affects the people around you."
"Amen!" Teri said.
Antonucci paused. In his 57 years, he has learned to make do. Buckling under the pressure of Crohn's disease, crushing medical debt, and the high cost of living in Central Oregon, Antonucci is living a precarious life. His call to "continue in your faith" may comfort him as much as his flock.
In my glories
Antonucci is no stranger to precarity. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, as a boy, he found comfort in his grandmother, Mary Antonucci. She was his rock, but she wrestled with diabetes, colitis and colon cancer. She suffered a major stroke and died when Antonucci was just 17.
"She was my safe haven," he recalled. "She watched out for me until the very end."
Antonucci had just started his studies at Trinity Bible College in North Dakota then. He heard the call to preach when he was just 13, but his mom didn't want him to go so far away. Her attempts to undermine his dream opened a rift between them.
Before she died, Grandma Mary encouraged Antonucci to follow his heart.
"I was in my glories when teaching," he said. "I met Teri at Trinity, and we married before I had graduated."
Estranged from his mom, Antonucci connected with his uncle, James, in Wichita, Kansas.
"I'd travel down there on break," Antonucci said. "He supported my dream of being a preacher. He was like a dad to me."
School grew increasingly difficult. Antonucci had no luck landing work as a preacher, and he didn't have the money to complete his studies. With his back against the wall, he enrolled at Wichita Vocational Tech, where he learned to cook.
"With that, I was hired to cook at Trinity," he said. "So, I returned."
But the struggles continued. They traveled between Kansas, New York, Texas and Oregon, where Teri's family lived. Antonucci tried his hand at several jobs, but nothing stuck.
Though he was young, his health was already failing. In 1996, he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. He was just 26.
"I weighed 460 pounds then," said Antonucci. "That was before gastric bypass surgery."
The harsh reality
Antonucci completed his studies via correspondence. He landed a ministry position in Prineville, but his failing health made it unsustainable.
Studies show that 75% of pastors are extremely stressed, with 9 out of 10 working between 55 and 75 hours a week. Meanwhile, 70% say they're grossly underpaid.
The constant travel, job churn and stresses that come with it took a toll on Antonucci's health.
"My Crohn's was going crazy," Antonucci said. Crohn's disease is a type of chronic inflammatory bowel condition. Symptoms include severe stomach pain, diarrhea and fatigue. It can be debilitating, and it can also cause life-threatening complications.
"We moved to Heppner, Oregon, to live with Teri's family while I tried to heal," Antonucci said. "The following two years were rocky."
In 2008, he was invited to pastor Heppner Assembly of God. He accepted.
Due to his health struggles, he qualified for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) in 2013.
"It helped, but those payments didn't go far then," he said. "And they don't go far today."
In 2019, Antonucci was invited to become the pastor at Grace Fellowships of Central Oregon in Redmond. He wasn't aware of the mounting cost-of-living crisis when he arrived. He needed to be nearer to doctors who could provide the care he required.
"We were granted access to a low-cost mobile home in Redmond," he said. "Then, the property owner decided to sell."
That's when the reality of renting in Redmond hit.
"I found that we needed $4,000 to move into a new place," Antonucci said. "I had an idea. We would buy an RV, which we would own, and park it on another family's property."
A Godsend
Antonucci's idea was more of a necessity than wishful thinking. If he bought an RV instead of renting, he wouldn't have to risk rejection due to mounting medical debt from years of procedures, emergency room visits and life-flight trips — expenses he can't afford on his SSDI payments.
A recent Johns Hopkins study found that renters with medical debt were 44% more likely to experience housing insecurity.
While it's difficult to count the number of homeless people who are wrestling with chronic health conditions, a 2023 report by Portland Street Medicine found that 80% of the homeless people in Portland reported a chronic disability. A recent Johns Hopkins study found that renters with medical debt were 44% more likely to experience housing insecurity. Antonucci contends with both.
Faced with that harsh reality, Antonucci bought the RV. He moved it onto the family's property.
The arrangement worked for about two years. Then, the owner died, and the family decided to sell.
The Antonuccis would have to move again.
"We had 30 days to vacate the property," said Antonucci. "We didn't know what to do."
In difficult times, Antonucci draws strength from the Bible, especially 2 Corinthians 4:8: "We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair."
"I'm in so much pain at times, it's unbearable," Antonucci explained. "If I didn't have faith, I don't know how I could carry on."
As time was running out, the Antonuccis were granted a spot at one of Mountain View Community Development's Safe Parking sites at Northeast 17th Street in Redmond.
"We were coming down to the wire, and had no other option available to us," Antonucci said. "It was a Godsend."
Faith over fear
The Antonuccis currently live in the parking lot at the Mountain View Fellowship Church. They have electricity but their heater recently went out. They've had to rely upon electric blankets and space heaters. Antonucci said they can see their breath in the mornings, even when inside the RV.
They're seeking other options — an apartment, a parking space on Greenwood's property, anything. As of that warm Sunday morning in February, nothing had come through.
Antonucci pushed through the pain that comes with Crohn's and ongoing uncertainty to deliver his sermon. That's when he's happiest.
"Sin does not separate you from God," Antonucci said, staring into the lens of his cellphone. "If you believe in the gospel — the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ — you are saved!"
"Amen!" said Teri.
"Amen!" said Greenwood.
"Faith and fear do not go hand in hand," Antonucci continued, his voice lilting. "Faith blots out fear."
"Amen!" said MaKayla, who had been mostly quiet.
Antonucci paused and inhaled deeply.
"I think we'll end there," Antonucci said. "Everything clear as mud?"
His flock let out a peal of laughter.
"Until next time, 'Hello!'" Antonucci said. As he waved his hand, he spilled some coffee on the carpet. MaKayla stopped recording.
"Sorry, Sis," Antonucci said, searching for a rag to soak up the spilled coffee.
"Oh, well," said Pickett. "Life goes on."
Homelessness: Real Stories, Real Solutions (realstoriesrealsolutions.org) is a journalism lab funded by Central Oregon Health Council under FORJournalism (forjournalism.org), an Oregon nonprofit dedicated to supporting journalism statewide. Sign up for weekly newsletters to receive updates.
