Autobiographical Essay of Working With Habitat for Humanity Essay

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Habitat for Humanity

Across the country and around the world, homelessness is a major problem for more than 100 million people who lack a permanent dwelling of their own (About Habitat for Humanity, 2016). One organization that has been committed to addressing this problem is Habitat for Humanity, a Christian ministry that helped nearly 7 million homeless people irrespective of their religion or race. Since its founding in 1976 in Georgia (Tucker, 2009), Habitat for Humanity has become an international organization in more than 70 countries with more than 1,400 local affiliates in the United States alone (About Habitat for Humanity, 2016). Inspired by former President Jimmy Carter's efforts with this organization and the worthiness of their mission, I volunteered to participate in a Habitat for Humanity project in 2014 that involved the demolition of an abandoned house and construction of a new house on the site. This paper provides a description of this memorable experience, followed by a summary of the research and important findings about this experience in the conclusion.

Today, Habitat for Humanity (hereinafter alternatively "Habitat") offers those in need of decent housing a "hand up" instead of a "hand out" by requiring prospective homeowners to invest their about 500 hours of called "sweat equity" in their new homes in order to qualify for a mortgage from Habitat for Humanity (Tucker, 2009). According to Davis (2002), this sweat equity investment on the part of prospective owners is part of the organization's philosophical approach to helping people help themselves.

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In this regard, Davis (2002) advises that, "The philosophy of Habitat is not to provide a free house, but an opportunity to own a home through the work of the family and their ability to pay" (p. 78). The organization carefully screens prospective homeowners to ensure they satisfy the eligibility criteria and family support services are provided where needed (Davis, 2002). In addition, donated monies are used to buy the land, equipment and professional services that are needed to complete a housing project that cannot otherwise be acquired by charitable donations (Tucker, 2009).

Besides these resources, Habitat for Humanity projects rely in large part on volunteers from the local community, and a newspaper article about a project in my city convinced me that this organization could use my help despite my lack of carpentry or other construction skills. In any event, I believed I could contribute in the demolition process. "After all," I thought, "how hard could it be to tear down a house?" Well, it turned out that tearing down even a dilapidated old house was an enormously challenging enterprise that required the efforts of all 100 or so volunteers that showed up the first day of the project.

After milling about for awhile, the volunteers gathered in a semi-circle to listen to opening remarks by a Habitat for Humanity representative that was in charge of the project. Following a brief nondenominational prayer, and the introduction of the family who would receive the house.....

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