Posted on 06/13/2005 5:53:24 AM PDT by OESY
AN ORGANIZATION THAT NORMALLY WELCOMES press coverage of its bustling worksites and sweating volunteers, Habitat for Humanity has spent recent months in the awkward role of media target. News reports have tracked every move in a seedy executive-suite scandal that led to the January firing of the 29-year-old nonprofit's founder and president Millard Fuller over accusations of sexual harassment.
It wasn't the first time Fuller's hand had been slapped. When charges of unwelcome kissing and groping of female employees reached the organization's board in the early '90s, the evangelically-aligned group's most prominent supporter, former president Jimmy Carter, intervened on behalf of Fuller--a wealthy Georgian who was inspired to eliminate "poverty housing" while living in a commune in the 1970s. When the most recent charges arose, Carter again intervened, but this time the board ignored him and sent Fuller packing.
The matter now appears closed, despite lingering protests by volunteers and a legal spat over Fuller's effort to launch a new, similarly named organization. Habitat looks likely to retain its high-profile reputation as a cost-effective charitable endeavor, providing low-cost housing to America's homeless and poor.
Except that it isn't, and it doesn't. The hundreds of millions of dollars that Habitat raises and spends each year in this country--including large amounts from the federal government, philanthropic foundations, and corporate sponsors such as the Lowe's chain of hardware stores--benefit a relatively tiny number of people whose incomes are usually well above poverty levels. (The group builds about 6,000 houses a year.)
Habitat doesn't just give away houses. Beneficiaries first make a down payment of $500-$1,000 and commit to several hundred hours of work on their new homes alongside Habitat's trademark army of volunteers. A local, independently incorporated Habitat affiliate then typically provides a 20-year, interest-free mortgage and collects a monthly payment in the range of $250 to $300. The mortgage note is held by the affiliate, which usually retains a right of first refusal should the homeowner want or need to sell the property.
Though some numbers that might be used to evaluate Habitat's overall cost-effectiveness--total volunteer hours on-site or aggregated homeowner financial data, for instance--can be hard to come by, one number features prominently in Habitat's marketing: two. That is the officially reported percentage of Habitat homeowners who default on their loans and on whose houses the organization's local affiliates foreclose. To keep that number low, affiliates often offer financial-crisis services, but what they mainly do is look for candidates who are unlikely to default--candidates, in effect, who aren't that poor.
The Habitat affiliate in Coachella Valley, California, for instance, builds two houses that come with $80,000 mortgages each year and hasn't had a single foreclosure since its founding in the early 1990s, according to spokesperson Adrienne Kinsey. How? "Well, we do credit checks--we don't want someone who's going to default. I just tell [candidates] that they have to be able to make their mortgage payments," she says.
As do all Habitat affiliates, Kinsey's group looks for both an ability to pay and a need--in other words, a minimum and a maximum family income. In Coachella Valley, that means a range of $24,435 to $32,580 for a family of four. That range varies notably across the country, with the affiliate in Davidson, North Carolina, for instance, requiring incomes between $20,125 and $38,500.
Such incomes don't make for Forbes-list candidates, but neither do they constitute poverty. In 2004, the Poverty Threshold of the federal Bureau of the Census--the income level below which a family of four is considered impoverished--was just under $19,500. The sample Habitat requirements cited above miss it entirely, and the highest income allowed for a family of four--$38,500--actually exceeds 40 percent of U.S. households.
For a comparative measure, consider the Department of Housing and Urban Development's requirements for the main federal housing-subsidy program "Section 8," which dictate that most beneficiaries must have incomes lower than 30 percent of the median income for their area. By contrast, the Davidson, N.C., Habitat affiliate requires that candidates have incomes higher than 35 percent of the local median income. (God pity the households with incomes between 30 and 35 percent of the median: too rich for the federal subsidy; too poor for Habitat.)
What's going on here? Jerome Baggett, a sociologist at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, California, who has written on Habitat's field work and volunteer culture, puts it simply: Habitat is limiting its risk by "partnering with people with higher and higher and higher incomes." Baggett says he admires Habitat's esprit de corps and its ability to get wealthier Americans "off their couches and swinging hammers," but it remains the case that Habitat's massive charitable enterprise benefits families that "would otherwise be middle-income in a few years anyway." Indeed, many beneficiaries already have incomes high enough to qualify for conventional mortgages from ordinary lenders.
Seen in this light, Habitat's basic sales pitch for its U.S. fundraising efforts begins to look misleading. The section of its website entitled "Why Habitat for Humanity Is Needed," for instance, begins with the sobering announcement that "millions of Americans face a housing crisis. In fact, 5.1 million American families have 'worst-case' housing needs." That may be, but how many of those 5.1 million families--about 4.5 percent of the U.S. total--is Habitat likely to help, given that it serves those above the bottom 20 percent in household income? A good guess: hardly any. Habitat talks about America's poor and homeless but lays out its money up the block.
THAT HABITAT'S BENEFITS regularly fall to those other than the homeless and the poor is just one criticism leveled by Baggett, who complains also about the paternalism of Habitat towards its homeowners, including criticism of new owners who speak publicly of their plans to move beyond their Habitat home or who "don't act poor or grateful enough." The Habitat affiliates' right of first refusal, for example, which allows it to buy a house offered for sale during the lifespan of the mortgage for no more than its original cost, can be used to prevent homeowners from realizing gains until their mortgage is fully paid. But if a house does rise in value, the homeowner is on the hook for the higher property taxes, which quickly can surpass the modest mortgage payment. Not surprisingly, a number of Habitat homeowners each year chafe at the restrictions, deed their houses back to affiliates, and walk away.
Still, for argument's sake, let's say that Habitat supporters--a list that includes taxpayers by means of some $14.7 million in HUD grants in 2004--actually do want a charity that provides America's not-quite-poor and almost-middle-income with deeply subsidized mortgages and a little well-intended condescension. Surely Habitat is at least a cost-effective way to do that, right?
Think again. Representatives at Habitat's international headquarters in Georgia will say only that its houses typically sell for $49 per square foot; many local affiliates will admit freely that construction costs can run tens of thousands of dollars more than the sale price reflects. Appropriately calculated, Habitat's typical per-square-foot construction cost is likely closer to, if not even higher than, that of private-sector, entry-level homebuilders--volunteers and donations notwithstanding.
More to the point: Is Habitat for Humanity's basic model of building and holding notes on houses an effective use of its donors' money? This year, Habitat's international organization and its affiliates worldwide will report revenues of almost a billion dollars, making it one of the largest U.S.-based charities. Habitat declines to release aggregated figures on its expenditures, but a conservative estimate for last year, for example, would be to divide $600 million by the 6,000 houses built here. That produces this staggering--and probably understated--result: Each year, Habitat offices spend or commit some $100,000 per beneficiary family in the United States.
What other ostensibly poverty-oriented charity comes anywhere close to that? For that kind of money, scores of thousands of lower-income Americans could be led by counselors through a thorough rehabilitation of their credit profile or even receive outright grants to use as housing down payments with conventional lenders. Far more genuinely poor Americans could be helped to stay in homes they already own; thousands more apartment-or rowhouse-owners could receive funds and volunteer assistance renovating their existing properties.
In other words, why does Habitat for Humanity persist, at such great expense and limitation, in supporting its own alternative to the extremely efficient and highly accessible private housing and financial markets? It is as if Fuller, back in his '70s-hippie-commune days, acted instead on an urge to help educate people by building his own colossal, tuition-subsidized K-through-college complex in the woods of rural Georgia.
One answer, of course, is that a do-it-yourself homebuilding empire is curiously appealing to donors. Habitat's volunteer carpenters, for instance, also write a large portion of the checks received, and for them, says sociologist Baggett, building houses on the other side of the tracks looks good and feels good. The real draw isn't the eventual homeowner--it's the fleeting intimacy of a 21st-century barn raising in which volunteers can "rub shoulders and swing hammers and have a sense of community," as he puts it. "Feeling good and feeling right--and that's more valuable to a lot of Americans than the work they're actually volunteering to do."
The public face of Habitat for Humanity is one of energetic warmheartedness with a touch of glitz--earnest staff, busy volunteers, enthusiastic celebrities from Oprah to Jack Kemp. But seen up close, Habitat for Humanity looks more like a wildly expensive means of aiding a misrepresented clientele.
Perhaps, then, change at the top is well timed. With vision and tough choices, Millard Fuller's successor may be able to restore a focus on Americans in the bottom fifth of household incomes, and develop or expand more cost-effective programs for higher-risk clients. The odds for such a transformation are probably slim, however. After all, the chair of the search committee is none other than Jimmy Carter.
When we first got married we were poor and NO ONE built a home for US! We worked and saved and did without extras and bought our own little tiny first house back in 1975.
How many mainline Protestant denominations support H for H? I know the largest Methodist Church in the Columbus, Georgia area pours in plenty of dollars and volunteers both for projects in Columbus and in Nicaragua.
One Habitat house got some publicity because there was a $40,000 SUV parked out in front. But the homeowner explained it was not her car, it was just her boyfriend's.
In the case of Nicaragua, the Habitat projects export Gringo labor to a country that has a labor surplus. Meanwhile the Church yields all the religious talk to other denominations like the Jehovah's Witness and let them establish the new congregations.
Nothing is what it seems.
In 1975, we borrowed $2000 from my husband's father and purchased both sides of a little duplex for $18,000.00. We rehabbed it, at one point scrapping cat poop out of corners replacing flooring where it was too bad. We painted everything and put down new carpet, etc. etc.
We rented out the other side for enough to pay our mortgage and paid off my father in law in one year. From that and then a second duplex purchased with the GI bill, and another with FHA, we lived in and rehabbed property until today we own several rental properties. It's still a modest portfolio but will help us retire. We figure we can downsize through each property, two years in each, and avoid capital gains as we sell them off but we'll probably end up giving two or three of them to our children, or more likely, like our father in law did, we'll sell them to us and they'll pay us back.
In some places, it's almost impossible to buy a house though. That's why my wife and I bought an existing one that had all the things we needed. The time and extra money it would have taken to build a new one weren't worth it to us.
There's a great deal of truth in this. Habitat is a favorite charity of leftists because of the "feel good" aspect. Not long ago, for instance, the Atlanta newspaper printed three separate stories about the same Habitat homeowner, a woman who was marrying one of the carpenters who worked on her Habitat build. The overkill on that story reminded me of Howard Dean's exortation to the Democrats to brag about their own values.
I don't think that the big problem with Habitat here is that its clients are less than destitute. I am more concerned about the way the Habitat homeowner selection process serves to reinforce dysfunctional behavior in inner-city communities. The typical homeowner I have met at Habitat builds is a single mother who shacks up with a guy, usually the father of some of her children. The guy often helps with the Habitat build, and he will live in the house with the woman. But she will be the homeowner, and he will remain a "guest." You might think that if he actually married the woman, he could get his name on the deed. But then there would be no deed--because then the official family income (the real household income) would be too high for the couple to quality for a Habitat home. Result: whole communities of single-mom Habitat families, almost all of them living in "shack-up" households with small kids. Doesn't seem to me that an organization with Christian pretensions should be encouraging this.
Truer words were noever spoken!
Our church worked on two Habitat houses as mission projects a few years ago. I went on the first trip that summer and, from a spiritual standpoint, it was one of the best experiences of my life.
However, having been in and out of construction for the better part of my adult life, I can tell you it was an absolute joke from that standpoint. First off, We took a group of folks who know a LOT about construction, and we had almost 25 people go with us. When we went on the site, there were NO materials as the construction supervisor failed to call and order anything, so our guys got on the phone and ended up ordering what we needed to do what we were asked to do for the week. Well, one job we had was to hang a door going to a deck that was to be built the next week. When we set the door in place, we noticed the whole outside wall moved when we pushed on it because the team who did the framing had NO ONE with construction experience and failed to tie the walls or rafters together to stabilize it. We spent the better part of two days firming it all up.
When we left that week, the supervisor told us we had done more than any group he had ever had work on a house (well, DUH!) and was amazed how efficient we were. We worked out butts off, but the part about the prospective homeowner required to do a part of the work is misleading as well. Our "homeowner" was "handicapped" (read severely overweight with heart problems) and barely showed up at all. She did make a poster for all of us to sign that she said she would hang in the new house when done, but that was essentially it.
The next year, we had a group go up to work on a house being built next to the one we worked on the previous year. We had 8 people sign up to go and they got almost nothing accomplished as (again!) the supervisor failed to order materials.
We have not done another Habitat house since. I am NOT surprised at this article's revalations. It is, to me, a way for rich liberals to feel good about helping the "poor" when in fact they are doing very little to nothing to help the "poor" and it is a money pit. Typical liberal operation with the Grand Poobah of liberal inefficiency as it's main spokesman - Jimmah Cahtuh
I've got friends who LOVE Jimmah Cartah and who will not brook hearing a single discouraging word about the man. Personally I think the guy is a real nasty piece of work and an outright traitor and America hater.
I've always thought most do goodism and altruism is only occassionally about really helping the "poor" or "the children" amd more about "feeling good" or superior or smug about oneself. A lot of hype, condescension and hypocrisy.
But then, I'm a cynic about people's motives. Especially Democrats and hippie dregs.
Ping for later.
When I was in the Army in the mid-1970's, my roommate was a Georgian who had worked with the Georgia state police through his Georgia Tech connections. He knew Carter pretty well, and had been involved in his gubenatorial campaign. He had come to despise Carter and supported Ford in '76. He said Carter was a hypocrite (my roommate was also an evangelical Christian), mean-spirited, and self-righteous based on two years working with him on a weekly basis.
All of this could be rememdied if Habitat quit holding the mortgages and allowed the buyers to obtain conventional financing. This is indeed "paternalism" and keeps the low-income buyer exactly where they are. If the buyer has the wherewithal to want a house and maintain it, they're going to want to profit from it the same as anyone else.
The builders could still contribute as they do know. Just Habitat won't have a large real estate portfolio.
Check out the vehicles at the "food pantries". It's disgusting. Some people have their priorities a little confused.
I'd be interested in knowing how the beneficiaries treat the homes that are essentially given to them (aside from token payments).
How do they fare years later in terms of depreciation and resale value, or does the buy-back plan obscure this?
The Touching stuff may or may not be true, the world is too sick to make book on who cheats and who does not, but some people are so PC they don't allow anyone to touch them or compliment them.
Well in Houston they are trying to confiscate a public park (in poor er area) to build a couple of these shanties.
Why do these types of "charities" think that they have some special RIGHT to things that aren't theirs?
It's in the DUMs genes. Take from people and give it to the Dums chosen few.
What I always got frosted about was that JC donated a few day's work every year...the media made it sound like he swung a hammer from dawn til dusk every day...
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