Corinne O’Connell, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia discussed their vision, a city where everyone has a decent place to live, and how they set out to accomplish it. We discussed the need for secure, safe and fair priced homes for working families, homes that cost 30% or less of their income. She described how they work with neighborhoods to select homes and neighborhoods and then rehab – or build – homes for participants. Homes ae not free, they are sold to the participant at a fair rate, after an intensive training in financial literacy class, home maintenance and a minimum of 350 hours of sweat equity. Participants are also coached on community involvement, they and Habitat work to better the neighborhood as well, there are low and no-cost repairs available to them. Habitat notes that the most affordable home is the one a family already lives in, and they offer repair work to keep the family in that home, another boost for the local community. As part of their mission, Habitat seeks to acknowledge and alleviate the inequalities of home buying and selling based on race, the covenants and redlining of the past have created and perpetuated intergenerational poverty, and created gaps in income and educational opportunities. To increase awareness for the problem they hosted a series available for download at habitatphiladelphia.org. We ended with a discussion of the volunteers who teach, build or fundraise and their ReStore, a discount home improvement store that sells donated gently used or new building materials, furniture and appliances to help fund their programs.
Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia