The Hampshire Terrace apartment complex, near 20th Street and Connecticut Avenue, was built by the Royal Heights United Methodist Church in Joplin in the early 1970s as a way to provide housing to low-income residents. This was the first chapter of Loving Grace before it transformed into what it is today.

Loving Grace was created as an outreach ministry of the Royal Heights Church. By the time the complex was destroyed in the 2011 tornado, it was no longer directly owned and operated by the church itself but rather by a nonprofit board made up of church members.