BY KAY-ELLE DASH
 
When you are falling to sleep tonight, in all your woe & worry, think at least you have a house.
Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit Christian organization founded on the conviction that every man, woman and child should have a decent, safe and affordable place to live building with the people in need regardless of race or religion, building houses for the needy every day. Since 1976 they have built over 400,000 decent a7 affordable houses as well as served over two million people around the world. Their mission is simple “seek to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.”
Nearly 2 billion people around the world live in slum housing and over 100 million are homeless. Just that number alone is saddening, and is a good reason to have such an organization. How sad is it to think, there are children out there freezing by their roof is letting rain in or because they have no roof at all, and although the family tries what they can as far as money, nothing is ever enough.
Being human & the will to help yourself is all HFH asks for, in addition to donations & volunteer work, HFH asks the family they are building for to help build to pay off the debt of the house as “sweat equity” As well as very small payments a month in most cases. Which seems fair, a basically free house for a few hours of work & a small portion of your income.
In short, its one fix to the ever growing problem of homelessness. All HFH needs as of now is a lot of man hours. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never built a house before (who has?!), they have professionals on staff closely supervising. Yes the houses are simple, but sustainable & healthy. What does the complexity of a house matter when it is keeping you safe & protected from the elements, as well as providing a living space for a family to make their own memories.
None of my calls to action or crazy guilt trips to make you help. I leave you with this, what’s giving up one day of your life to help if it means positively effecting a family for the rest of their life.
To learn more, donate, or volunteer your time visit:
www.habitat.org
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