Habitat For Humanity Goes Green!
(Page 5 of 6)
April/May 2003
By Dan Chiras
Habitat's Hand Up
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Along with the invaluable assistance of volunteers, the Habitat for Humanity program requires homeowners to participate in the construction of their homes.
Left: Sixteen-year-old Isaac Felix gets his hands dirty helping to prepare the clay mixture for his family's Habitat rammed-earth home in the Silver Creek Development of Tucson, Arizona.
Relying principally on volunteers, among the most prominent of them former President Jimmy Carter, Habitat has built more than 130,000 homes for families since it was founded in 1976. Habitat homes appear in 82 countries, with more than 50,000 in the United States.
With donated and discounted building materials, and cash contributions from sponsors, Habitat helps families who need housing, and who commit to working shoulder-to-shoulder with community volunteers throughout the construction of their homes. In Tucson, Arizona, for example, single-parent families must agree to donate 200 hours of labor on the building or in the Habitat office; two-parent families must donate 400 hours of sweat equity, says Yvonne Coelet, Director of Public Relations.
Houses are priced affordably and the families who move in are given zero-interest loans. The interest-free loans and community underwriting of the project through volunteer labor and donated materials means home payments for the new residents are typically much lower than the rent payments they were making previously. In Tucson, families living in rental units pay at least $500 per month. In contrast, house payments for Habitat homes are typically about $350 per month. "With a house payment that's significantly lower than rent," says Coelet, "families can get ahead in life."
Besides dramatically lowering costs of living, Habitat homes provide unrivaled security to their partner families. Debbie Estrada, a single mom and Habitat homeowner in Tucson, is a stellar example. Several years ago, she suffered an accident and injury, which now confines her to a wheelchair. Today, she and her two children live in an "accessible home," specially designed to make fife easier for a wheelchair-bound individual, and built by the local Habitat affiliate.
Habitat Restores
Looking to build green? Want to cut resource use by purchasing used or surplus building materials at a fraction of their retail costs? Habitat for Humanity can help.
Today, more than 50 Habitat affiliates in the United States and Canada have begun selling donated building materials. The items are donated by contractors who ended up with excesses on building sites, by demolition crews who set aside usable materials or by the general public.
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