Several of you have had questions about how Habitat works so (although I'm NOT, even though I might try to convince you otherwise, the ultimate authority) I'll share with you my thoughts.Habitat is one way of providing decent housing to low income deserving families. The projects are Christian based but non-denominational. The builds we've been on were generally sponsored by several churches in the area. You do not have to be a church-goer to participate. John & I aren't. Volunteers have a wide range of faiths.
It is up to each affliate (local group) to help raise the construction money necessary to build a house. I assume they also get some assistance from Habitat International and, I'm told, Whirlpool continues to donate a stove and refrigerator to each Habitat house. Although the affliate is given guidelines for home construction (example - no garages/car ports should be included), they have a lot of flexibility in its design. Two of the houses we worked on (NC & TX) were energy efficient houses (something I personally think should be required of all new construction). Floor plans vary (the open floor plan in NC has been my favorite so far). Some places rehab existing houses but we've not worked with any of those sites.
Who gets the houses? Again, that's determined by the local affliate. Some require participants to put in volunteer hours before they're even considered. Others screen prospects first (financial history/need), then allow participants to fulfill volunteer hours on the house that will be theirs. The number of volunteer hours required to qualify for a house varies as well - we've seen as low as 50 or as high as 1,000. In the places we've been, participants were given instruction on budget management and home maintenance.
How do the finances work? This too varies but the most common way (that we've seen so far) is to give the new homeowner two mortgages. The first mortgage covers what it cost to build the house (around $60,000). It is an interest free loan. The term of the mortgage is calculated so the homeowners monthly payment for the mortgage plus insurance & taxes will not exceed what they could afford to pay in rent. The second mortage is the difference between the cost of the house and the accessed value of the house. This second mortgage is sort of an insurance for Habitat that the homeowner will not sell the house immediately and come away with the profit. When the first mortgage is paid, the second mortgage is forgiven.
Usually local volunteers do most of the construction on the houses and form a support network for the families to help them succeed. The affliates can also request the help of other volunteers. John & I volunteer through the branch called Care-A-Vanners where a maximum of 20 folks bring their campers and work on a project for a couple of weeks. This gives the local volunteers and their building project a boost. And everyone has a good time.
If you'd like more info or want to volunteer or contribute to Habitat in your community or abroad (John & I want to sign up for a build in New Zealand), just Google Habitat and read more. And lest you think we're soooooo good here, we get much more in return for the work we do. For one thing (even though we LOVE NY), it's a great excuse to leave home during the coldest time of the year. You meet LOTS of fun people. You get to spend time in a neighborhood you'd probably never visit otherwise and scope out all the good things it has going for it. Usually you get very generous, good lunches provided and free camping. (You can make a contribution in return but it's not required.) And, of course, it gives me something to write about in this blog.
But there are many ways to volunteer or contribute to make this world better (and also have a good time). Habitat is just one of them.
