Exhibit of a poor family home at the Ohio State Fair

This year the Ohio State Fair will have the home of a poor family as one of it's displays. The exhibit is sponsored by Habitat for Humanity and Thrivent Financial. After touring the home, visitors are encouraged to give donations to the two groups.

From this Associated Press article that we found at the Newark Advocate we read more details of the display. The home sounds a like your humble blogger's house in too many ways.

An exhibit at the Ohio State Fair depicts the home of a family in poverty, with light provided by a bare bulb hung from the ceiling and plaster off the walls.

Its sponsors said they hope people will be inspired into action by the display, housed inside a tractor-trailer near one of the fair entrances.

The grim scene also shows broken windows partially covered by tattered curtains, a 1970s space heater being used for warmth, and an electrical outlet packed with plugs.

Habitat for Humanity recieves a huge donation of 100 million

A member of Habitat for Humanity's board of directors has made a huge gift the the charity of 100 million dollars.

Large charitable contributions usually go to a University or for scientific research, so it is rare that gift like this goes to a social charity, especially remarkable in this economy.

From this Associated Press article that we found at Public Opinion Online, we learn more about the giver and what the money will be used for.

The donation comes from J. Ronald Terwilliger of Atlanta, a former chief executive of housing developer Trammell Crow Residential Co. and a longtime member of Habitat's board of directors.

Terwilliger said through his work with Habitat and in the private sector he's witnessed the depths of poverty, seeing people living in cardboard shacks and unspeakable filth, as well as the struggle for middle-class families to find affordable housing.

"People need a decent, safe, clean residence where they can get a good night's sleep and families can be together," he said. "If they have that as an anchor, they have a way to send their kids off to school regularly and a better chance those children will be healthy."

The donation comes at a difficult time for the Americus, Ga.-based organization, which like other nonprofit groups has struggled with increasing demand and slowing donations amid the economic downturn.

"This is a chance to have a really deep impact," said Jonathan Reckford, Habitat's chief executive. "It's an unprecedented commitment that sets a new bar for what's possible, and it encourages other people to give."

Habitat will use $30 million to fund an endowment that will make yearly grants to help build more houses.

The remaining $70 million will set up a micro-finance fund to help low-income families around the world repair and improve their housing.

Co-founder of Habitat for Humanity, Millard Fuller passes away

A leader of one of our favorite charities passed away today at the age of 74. Millard Fuller was the co-founder of Habitat for Humanity.

Fuller died around 3 am this morning after being taken to a hospital emergency room. He complained to his wife that he was having chest pains.

In this Associated Press story that we found at MSNBC, former President Jimmy Carter gave his condolences. The snippet also contains the story of the origins of Habitat for Humanity.

One of Habitat's highest-profile volunteers, former President Jimmy Carter, called Fuller "one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known.

"He used his remarkable gifts as an entrepreneur for the benefit of millions of needy people around the world by providing them with decent housing," Carter said in a statement. "As the founder of Habitat for Humanity and later the Fuller Center, he was an inspiration to me, other members of our family and an untold number of volunteers who worked side-by-side under his leadership."

After running Habitat for Humanity with his wife for nearly three decades, Fuller lost control of the charity in a conflict with its board. When ousted in January 2005, he and his wife vowed to continue working on housing the poor and started The Fuller Center for Housing to raise money for Habitat affiliates.

The son of a widower farmer in the cotton-mill town of Lanett, Ala., Fuller earned his first profit at age 6, selling a pig. While studying law at the University of Alabama, he formed a direct-marketing company with Morris Dees — later founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center — focusing on selling cookbooks and candy to high school chapters of the Future Homemakers of America. That business would make them millionaires before they were 30.

When Fuller's capitalist drive threatened to kill his marriage, Fuller and his wife, who wed in college, decided to sell everything and devote themselves to the Christian values they grew up with.

"I gave away about $1 million," Fuller said in a 2004 interview with The Associated Press. "I wasn't a multimillionaire; I was a poor millionaire."

Rising Insurance costs keeping Habitat houses locked in Mississippi

After Hurricane Katrina, Habitat for Humanity built 100s of houses in the Gulf area. But for one state, many of the houses built still haven't been occupied.

In Mississippi, the rising insurance coasts have kept the people out. Only 6 out of the 30 houses have been filled. The people have been having trouble saving for the first year taxes and insurance that Habitat requires.

In this Associated Press story found in the Desoto Times, the prospective homeowners have had to apply for other grants to raise the money.

"It is a struggle. That is not unique to Habitat families. It's a struggle to most first-time buyers," Monforton said.

But Hurricane Katrina, which hit in 2005, has exacerbated the average challenges homebuyers face.

The storm nearly wiped out Mississippi's coast, taking with it affordable housing. That is compounded by some insurance companies, scared off by the hurricane risks, greatly increasing their rates and others pulling out of the region altogether.

Since Katrina, rates along the Gulf Coast have increased about 33 percent in some areas, depending on how close a property is to the water, said Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney.

...

All of the Mississippi homes have been assigned. Some of the families are turning to outside grant programs for assistance with varying degrees of success. Families who qualify for up to a $48,000 grant through the state's Katrina work force housing program were waiting to receive that money before closing. But Monforton said the grant can't be used for taxes and insurance.

Tracey Robinson, 40, just moved into her Habitat home after receiving a grant from the city of Pascagoula to help cover her insurance costs. The Federal Emergency Management Agency recently stopped paying Robinson's rent at a house she moved into after she left a FEMA trailer.

"My kids and I were at the point where we really didn't have anywhere to go," said Robinson.

Guest speaker gives update on Habitat's work in Argentina

from the Pocono Record

By Andrew Scott

In a country where four out of every 10 families are forced to live on less than $50 a month in one-room tin shacks and children miss school after it rains because the dirt roads are too muddy to walk on, how do people find hope for the future?

One way is through building new homes for themselves, with the help of small no-interest loans and learning to keep and maintain their homes and budget both for living expenses and paying back those loans. Those payments go to help other families build homes.

Habitat for Humanity's sister affiliate in Argentina has been giving people in that country the opportunity to do all this since 2004.

"It boosts self-esteem when people can say, 'Now I'm not so poor because I can help another family,'" Ana Cutts, national director of Habitat for Humanity Argentina, told members of the Monroe County Habitat for Humanity affiliate during a Thursday visit at East Stroudsburg United Methodist Church.

This was Cutts' first visit to the sponsoring affiliate in Monroe County, which tithes donations it receives to the Argentina affiliate.

Founded in the U.S. in the 1970s, Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization, helps struggling, low-income families build affordable housing for themselves. Families are given loans which, when paid back, go into a fund to help other families build affordable homes.

Habitat now has affiliates in Third World countries such as Argentina, where the work it does is most needed. Affiliates function on community donations and, if in poorer countries, tithes from sponsoring sister affiliates.

Cutts on Thursday presented a certificate of appreciation to Douglas Freeman, president of the Monroe County affiliate.

"Argentina is a country of contrasts, rich vs. poor," Cutts said. "The poverty is growing and worsening (especially in light of crises like the devaluing of the country's currency in 2001 and the current farmers' strike). Families living in shacks eat at soup kitchens, churches or wherever else they can find food.

"Out of all the Latin American countries, Argentina has the third-highest need for adequate housing for its poor," she said, showing a short film featuring families' grateful reactions to Habitat's work there.

Habitat provides families with small loans, each ranging from $1,000 to $1,500, and has each family take part in building their new home. One-room tin shacks are replaced by one- or two-bedroom homes, built from square-meter concrete panels, with kitchens and dining and living rooms.

Habitat's More Than Houses program teaches families:

* Financial literacy, which involves budgeting and deciding what expenses (such as toys or snacks) to cut.
* Legal literacy to avoid mistakes like signing away home ownership.
* "Little Bricks," an effort that lets the children do presentations on what they've learned about the responsibilities of having a new home.

So far, Habitat has helped 397 families in Argentina and plans to help even more, Cutts said.

The other benefit is building relations between the families and Habitat volunteers from the U.S. helping them.

"People in Argentina tend to have a negative view of Americans," Cutts said. "But when they see these Americans coming there to help them, they connect with them as fellow human beings, regardless of whatever their politics may be.

"This goes hand in hand with changing Argentina's view of its poor," she said. "Not all poor people are criminals. Many obey the law, have jobs and do the best they can to raise their children to have morals and values, despite the conditions under which they live."

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Confronting housing and hunger

from Tulsa World

by: PAUL KENT

"Oklahoma, we have a problem."

This variation of the Apollo 13 mayday should be sounded loudly today.

In 2007, Oklahoma was tied with Kentucky for the seventh worst poverty rate. The state's current problems of substandard housing and alarming results about hunger found by Oklahoma's Task Force on Hunger warrant more than a rally cry. Needed are attention and action since housing and hunger plague one-fourth of the state's children and nearly one-fifth of the families live in poverty.

In a 2005 Tulsa housing report, some 6,000 dwellings were found to be unsuitable for habitation. Then-Mayor Bill LaFortune, inspired by Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller, envisioned eliminating substandard housing in Tulsa by 2025, while making sure that all Tulsans had a simple, decent place to lay their heads at night. Our landscape has changed little since then. Poverty and substandard housing remain prevalent.

Although the Bible says that the poor will be with us always, attempts to justify being anything less than good neighbors to every Tulsan cannot be excused or tolerated. A united front consisting of civic, corporate, and faith-group representatives is needed to confront substandard housing and hunger over the next decade lest the suffering of future generations multiply, both in state and city.

Thankfully, this month numerous groups return to invest thousands of dollars and hours volunteering to wage battle against substandard housing. Through partnership with Tulsa Habitat for Humanity's home-building with people in need, bridges continue to be built enabling groups to forget their differences while joining hands to build homes with low-income families.

Fifteen Lutheran congregations have united to build their fourth Habitat home as part of a nationwide alliance between Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and Habitat for Humanity. "Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity" is a four-year, $125-million partnership that in its first two years funded construction of more than 650 Habitat homes in 42 states and the District of Columbia. In 2008, $25 million from Thrivent Financial will fund another 322 Habitat homes.

Tulsa corporations and faith groups are working side-by-side with Habitat families constructing 12 new Habitat homes this spring. Hilti helps its fourth family in 20-months with plans to build with a fifth family this fall. Hilti CEO Cary Evert is one of a growing number of civic leaders who bangs nails alongside fellow employees. Samson CEO Stacy Schusterman and Bank of America-Oklahoma President Mike Earl combine forces with associates to build with a fifth family in five years, while ONEOK, led by CEO John Gibson, teams up with its fourth family.

The voices of pastors like Dr. Tom Harrison, Asbury United Methodist, are calling on members to influence their places of work by leading their companies to work on behalf of others. Emerging are home-building partnerships between faith communities and corporations. Boston Avenue United Methodist, building its eighth home, and Newfield Exploration Mid-continent, building a second time, represent this model, as do Murphy Resources, a local home-building company, which combines with Southern Hills Baptist, each building a third time with Habitat.

More than 150 companies, faith groups, and foundations have partnered with Tulsa Habitat for Humanity helping the local non-profit advance toward its 2025 goal of helping 1,500 families become homeowners, knocking out one-quarter of the 6,000 substandard dwellings. Families will have 15- to 30-year zero-interest mortgages based on the home cost with no-profit added. The principal on the note is used to fund future homes.

The housing campaign cannot be won alone. Tulsa Habitat needs others to help it build. Currently, women are being invited to help build the eighth "WOMEN BUILD" home beginning later this spring. People and groups interested in building or volunteering can contact Jamie Cox, Habitat volunteer director, at 592-4224, ext. 205 or jamiecox@habitat-tulsa.org. To learn more about Habitat and about volunteering visit www.tulsaworld.com/habitat .

Future housing needs defined by high urban growth in AP

from Habitat for Humanity

Future housing needs defined by high urban growth in AP A Right to a Decent Home - Mapping Poverty Housing in the Asia-Pacific Region

BANGKOK, February 06, 2007 - Failure to address the real and growing housing needs of the rural and urban poor today, will have severe implications for those living in poverty in the next generation.

Currently, 60 per cent of the world's slum areas are in the Asia-Pacific region, with most having little or no access to safe water, sanitation, or the most basic amenities. By 2030, another 1.3 billion people are expected to move to urban areas, almost all of whom will be poor. Those without home and hope will not only have a huge impact on economic stability, but will increasingly define both the housing needs as well as the political agenda in the rapidly urbanizing Asia-Pacific region.

These are some of the disturbing findings in a new report, A Right to a Decent Home - Mapping Poverty Housing in the Asia-Pacific Region. Commissioned by Habitat for Humanity, the report is the first of its kind bringing together in one document statistics and research compiled from a wide range of recognized publications on general poverty. It also contains short case studies on promising current initiatives by several organizations including Habitat for Humanity. This research highlights many of the causes and effects of rural and urban poverty housing and their implications on emerging economies.

Extensive footnotes and references for further reading make A Right to a Decent Home a valuable resource for urban planners, policy makers, development organizations and aid agencies, shelter professionals and others interested in the state of housing in the Asia-Pacific region. It is a useful backgrounder for executives responsible for their company's corporate social responsibility initiatives as well as individuals with a social conscience and celebrities in search of a cause. The UN Millennium Development Goals detail a common global poverty reduction strategy for all 189 UN member nations. Access to safe and decent housing, along with proper water and sanitation are clearly articulated under Goal #7. This calls for a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2015, including reducing by half globally, those without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

"Research shows that improvements in housing directly impact all of the other poverty reduction goals," states Habitat for Humanity's Asia-Pacific Vice-President Mr Steve Weir.

"As China, India and the rest of the Asian tigers rush to the front of the global economic development race, we can scarcely afford to leave so many families behind, languishing in extreme poverty. This report maps out key constraints as well as a few bright seeds of hope for the future."

A Right to a Decent Home demonstrates how poverty and inadequate housing work cyclically: those who lack adequate housing are forced to spend money and time on shelter rather than other basic needs. Poor health and safety conditions impact child mortality and family income. Overcrowding impacts children's education - the lack of privacy especially adversely affects young girls.

The lack of access to secure home ownership - both rural or urban - results in the poor missing out on economic opportunities such as earning income from renting out rooms, operating small businesses from home or benefiting from rising property prices; in short creating assets that are taken for granted by other, better off citizens.

In its housing policy document subtitled, "Enabling Markets to Work" the World Bank called on governments to leave construction of housing for the poor to the private sector and to reduce planning regulations and controls. This policy shift defines the trend away from housing provision and toward "enabling" market-based solutions. Many of these initiatives are discussed in A Right to a Decent Home, such as housing micro-finance, community funds, incremental and progressive housing, community-based water and sanitation management, government utility component sharing models and community-based disaster response.

Habitat for Humanity is involved in several of these initiatives. Habitat for Humanity supports micro-finance programs for both incremental and progressive building. In incremental building, Habitat provides micro-financing for construction on a room-by-room basis or as small loans for the construction of foundations and walls. In progressive building, Habitat's Save & Build and Build in Stages entail the construction of multiple houses on a unit-by-unit basis. This involves low-income families coming together, each making weekly or monthly contributions until the group reaches its one-house goal, at which point, Habitat and its partners provide loans for two more houses, and construction work begins. This cycle is then repeated until all group members have a home.

Community funds are subsidized loans to groups of people in slum communities for infrastructure improvements. They differ from many micro-finance lenders in that they prioritize poverty alleviation and neighborhood development. For example, in Manila, the municipality provided utility trunk infrastructure to the community's outer boundary, the community then installs its own pipes and connections through its own funds - a "component-sharing" model.

Disasters and poverty housing are intricately linked, with poverty causing people to live in unsafe areas in substandard houses and inevitable disasters sinking residents deeper into poverty. A Right to a Decent Home cites many tragic examples in the region. As part of its community-based disaster response, Habitat has extended its concept of Habitat Resource Centers, which train people in safe and efficient self building, into a catalyst for rebuilding homes and communities after disasters. As this concept serves more people at a lower cost, it has become a key component of Habitat's disaster response program. This proved to be critical in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake.

Habitat's work over the years has demonstrated that building homes lays an essential foundation that will help a family break the cycle of poverty and transform their lives. It is a critical step towards achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals that seek to eradicate extreme poverty. This publication is intended to serve as a resource for those that share this common vision.

Please click on http://www.habitat.org/ap/ to download a copy of the report.

About Habitat for Humanity International Habitat for Humanity International is a global non-governmental organization that welcomes to its work all people dedicated to the cause of eliminating poverty housing. Since its founding in the USA in 1976, Habitat has built more than 200,000 houses in dozens of countries, providing simple, decent and affordable shelter for more than one million people with homes they helped build and which they have paid for with affordable, non-profit loans.