Hands-On Homebuilders

	If I Had a Hammer

If you've ever felt the urge to put on a hard hat and swing a hammer as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, the opportunity may be closer than you think.

No experience is necessary, and in the time you give, you'll get a hands-on chance to help someone less fortunate realize their dream of home ownership.

I recently volunteered at a Habitat for Humanity project in Newark, N.J. There, within one six-block radius, nearly 60 families are living in homes built by Habitat, the only visible progress in a beleaguered neighborhood that was shattered by the city's infamous 1967 riots.

Hendricks Davis, executive director of the Newark Habitat for Humanity, led me around the headquarters, a ravaged former bank building that was acquired for $1 from a city that desperately needed help with rebuilding.

In 1991, Habitat staff and volunteers reconstructed the bank as a 10-share co-op, Habitat taking over two shares for its administrative offices and the rest purchased by first-time, low-income homebuyers.

Six of the original owners are still there, a sign of the stability that characterizes Habitat projects. "People commit their time and energy, and they're not likely to sell quickly," Hendricks explains.

How It Works

All new volunteers, like me, first undergo a brief orientation, including a short safety video and background on how Habitat for Humanity operates. (Many of the Newark branch's volunteers hail from local corporate offices including Federal Express, TD Banknorth, Anheuser Busch and SBLI.)

Like its counterparts, the Newark chapter is self-sustaining. Each of its homes costs about $85,000 to build and roughly 85% of the workers who build them are volunteers.

Habitat builds houses with the help of homeowner or "partner" families, who are expected to contribute a minimum 400 hours of sweat equity -- working at their home's construction site every Saturday, for at least one year.

For the majority of the partner families, Habitat houses are a giant step away from the substandard housing in which they've lived for years. Motivated to break that negative cycle, these families undergo a rigorous application process that includes a thorough credit review.

Habitat houses are then sold to partner families at no profit, financed with affordable (0% interest) loans. The homeowners' monthly mortgage payments are funneled back into the organization, and used to build more Habitat houses.

Rebuilding a Neighborhood

After orientation, our band of volunteers headed on foot to a construction site two blocks away, where a row of three-bedroom single-family homes stood in various stages of completion.

We met the Habitat crew members who would guide us through the day, and donned hard hats, work gloves and goggles. We learned what the crew hoped to accomplish within the next eight hours: put up aluminum siding, install gutters and put up sheetrock in the rooms inside.