The two-hour trip was a lot shorter before Quinn, a 59-year-old part-time home health care aide, got priced out of her Berkeley apartment earlier this year. Deciding whether to stick with their churches despite bruising commutes has long been an agonizing call for African-Americans who have left inner cities in search of safer neighborhoods, better schools and cheaper housing.

Over time, most do cut the cord. But with soaring home prices fueling a new wave of migration eastward, many recent transplants such as Quinn are still willing to board a train or expend a half tank of gas every Sunday to return to churches that bind them to their families, their childhoods and their hometowns....

The black churches in the inner East Bay, East Contra Costa and the Central Valley are as intricately linked to each other as they are to the communities they serve. And they are every bit as vulnerable to the roller-coaster housing market as their parishioners. ...

"Every week I hear from people who tell me they're moving to Antioch or Pittsburg," said the Rev. George C.L. Cummings of Imani Community Church. "They say rent is going up and they can't afford Oakland anymore."