Catalyzing communities for global solutions

Helping close the homeownership gap in New York through mortgage readiness

In the U.S., systemic barriers, restrictive racial covenants, exclusionary zoning, predatory lending, and more, have kept Black families from unlocking the intergenerational wealth-building potential of homeownership. Through Habitat’s Advancing Black Homeownership initiative, we are working to dismantle the exclusionary race-based systems and racial biases that have prevented Black families from equitably accessing homeownership opportunities.

Habitat affiliates across the country have made the pursuit of racial justice in housing a core component of their work. Habitat Dutchess County provides an example of this localized and targeted approach.

In September 2022, the New York affiliate found that just 1 in 25 Black families who applied during their recent application period were accepted to their homeownership program. The others did not qualify financially to own a Habitat home. This demographic data inspired Dutchess County to shape Homeward Bound, a program that helps prepare prospective Habitat homebuyers for mortgage readiness.

Program participants receive financial counseling and create individualized action plans that help them build savings, improve credit, reduce debt and more.

Half of the prospective homebuyers who have joined Homeward Bound since the program’s launch identify as Black. Habitat Dutchess County is increasing their community outreach efforts in predominantly Black communities in Poughkeepsie, New York, to encourage even more participation in Homeward Bound to start the path to homeownership.

To help speed their momentum, Habitat for Humanity International recently awarded Habitat Dutchess County a federal capacity building grant that will allow the affiliate to hire a staff member specifically dedicated to expanding these community outreach efforts and growing the pipeline of mortgage-ready Black families.

Maureen Brennan Lashlee, Habitat Dutchess County’s chief executive officer, says the affiliate meets residents where they are and takes a listen-first approach to better understand the needs of the community. “We don’t know what we don’t know,” she says. “That’s why what Habitat is doing right now is so incredibly important. We’re reaching out to the Black community and asking, ‘How can we do this better?’”

Strengthening energy efficiency amid the war in Ukraine

Habitat for Humanity is partnering with local housing experts amid the war in Ukraine to provide urgent in-country energy upgrades. Habitat helped modernize 10 buildings in 2023, enabling 1,000 households in Odessa, Ukraine, to stay warm in the winter while reducing their energy costs by 25%.

Much of the housing stock in Ukraine — like elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe — consists of Soviet-era, large-scale buildings that aren’t energy efficient. These aging residential blocks force families to pay a high share of their income on utility bills, especially in the winter and summer months when energy needs and costs skyrocket.

The onset of the war in Ukraine in February 2022 made matters worse. The war triggered a global energy crisis and caused household energy costs to soar. Missile strikes brought frequent power outages and left heating sources inoperable for many during the winter months. “It was colder than ever in my apartment,” says Lydia, a 75-year-old Odessa resident. “I slept dressed in a coat.”

Since 2009, Habitat has improved residential energy efficiency in hundreds of apartment buildings across Central and Eastern Europe, helping thousands of homeowners like Lydia save money and live more comfortably. Habitat began this work in Ukraine in 2020 when we partnered with Odessa Housing Union.

Habitat’s existing partnership with Odessa Housing Union and our financial and technical support have enabled us to upgrade weather-regulated heating systems, insulate ceilings and install individual heating substations in 10 multiunit buildings across the city.

Habitat and Odessa Housing Union also have modernized basements within the upgraded apartment buildings to function as places residents can shelter during air raid warnings and bombings.

Ludmila remembers the fear of seeing a missile destroy a nearby high-rise apartment in the early days of the war. She discovered Habitat and Odessa Housing Union’s retrofitting work through a television ad and reached out. Odessa Housing Union finished upgrades in her building in the spring.

Habitat’s energy-efficiency work in Ukraine is continuing to help us reach more people affected by the war. By April 2024, Habitat and Odessa Housing Union will modernize 24 additional buildings, improving the energy security of 2,400 people.

Advocating for government funding for affordable housing in Texas

Austin Habitat and several partner organizations played a critical role in passing a housing bond voted on in the November 2022 election that secured US$350 million for affordable housing in Austin, Texas. The affordable housing bond is the city’s largest bond of its kind and sets aside government funding for developers to acquire land, build affordable homes and rental properties, and repair and rehabilitate existing homes.

The bond will help scale affordable housing construction amid Austin’s rapid population growth and subsequent spike in housing costs. The median price of a single-family house in Austin more than doubled over the last 10 years, jumping from US$216,000 in 2011 to US$536,000 in 2021. Wayne Gerami, Austin Habitat’s chief operating officer, says the shortage of affordable housing has made it “increasingly difficult for longtime Austinites to afford to live in the city they grew up in.”

As the city’s growth continued to strain the housing market, advocates began exploring options for expanding the affordable housing stock.

In 2022, Austin Habitat and a coalition of local housing organizations launched a campaign to pass Proposition A, an affordable housing bond that would provide much-needed funding to multiply affordable homeownership and rental opportunities in Austin. The advocacy efforts built on the coalition’s past success in rallying voters to approve a US$250 million affordable housing bond in 2018.

The coalition ran a poll to gauge voter interest, organized rallies, hosted events to encourage public activism, and met with city councilmembers and candidates running for office to promote housing as a nonpartisan issue. Proposition A passed overwhelmingly on Election Day, with 71% of voters casting ballots in favor of the new housing bond. “Everything we’ve done successfully to advocate for more housing in Austin has been because of the coalition,” Greg says.

Austin Habitat has tapped into the fund to advance affordable homebuilding through projects like their new Persimmon Point community. Persimmon Point, which broke ground in summer 2023, will be home to 126 families upon completion, making it Austin Habitat’s largest development to date. The city has committed more than US$11 million to the project, with some of the funding coming from the recent affordable housing bond.

Austin Habitat’s advocacy win is representative of the policy success Habitat is driving through Cost of Home, our five-year U.S. home affordability advocacy campaign. Since launching the campaign in 2019, local and state Habitat organizations have helped influence more than 300 policies, unlocking more than US$21 billion in government funding and increased home affordability for an estimated 6.6 million people.

See the Cost of Home campaign's impact and partners in FY2023.

Building a brighter future with Habitat

Marsha faced more than two decades of housing instability, but the military veteran and single mother never lost sight of her goal to become a homeowner. In 2023, she moved into her quiet, four-bedroom Habitat home in Lovejoy, Georgia. “It’s life-changing,” Marsha says. “I always wanted to live in a cul-de-sac, and now I live in a cul-de-sac. My kids are very proud that I hung in there, that I didn’t give up.”

Marsha joined the United States Army out of high school. After six years of service, she retired from the military in 1995 to start her family. A series of personal challenges quickly changed everything for Marsha. “Before I knew it, my life just turned into survival mode. It was a whirlwind,” she says.

She struggled to find a safe and decent place to live for herself and young family. Marsha and her kids experienced homelessness for a few years, but she eventually joined a subsidized housing program where she could focus on improving her financial well-being. Marsha took advantage of her newfound housing stability and advanced to higher-paying jobs, improved her credit and strengthened her savings. She continued to inch closer to her dream of homeownership.

The same week she started her new job as a bus operator for Atlanta’s public transit agency, she was accepted into Southern Crescent Habitat’s homeownership program. The Georgia affiliate provided Marsha with the information and tools needed to navigate the homebuying process.

Marsha and her two youngest children, 18-year-old twins Elizabeth and Elisha, live in Southern Crescent Habitat’s Hannah Springs community, a lively and thriving neighborhood. “I love that I’m part of a community and that all my neighbors went through the Habitat program,” she says. “They all live with the same pride I have.”

Residents leading neighborhood revitalization

A cohort of 10 Habitat for Humanity affiliates working in under-resourced communities across the U.S. has implemented and tested our Quality of Life Framework through the past five years. The framework promotes resident-led revitalization and serves as a customizable tool for residents and partners to identify community challenges and build on strengths in ways that lead to changes that foster equitable, livable and resilient neighborhoods.

The participating communities varied in geography and project focus, but all used Habitat’s Quality of Life Framework to help residents improve opportunity in their neighborhoods. Two of those neighborhoods — one in Louisiana, the other in Massachusetts — showcase how the framework is applied and adapted according to the specific priorities in each community.

Spearheading revitalization efforts in Louisiana

Residents in Lafayette, Louisiana’s McComb-Veazey neighborhood strive to preserve and celebrate the community’s rich Black and French Creole heritage. The McComb-Veazey Neighborhood Coterie, a coalition of community residents, formed more than a decade ago to identify local priorities and spur neighborhood improvements in areas like access to decent housing, parks and community spaces.

Lafayette Habitat partnered with the coterie as part of the Quality of Life pilot to help the community realize its vision. The affiliate centered much of its homebuilding efforts in McComb-Veazey, building more than 40 affordable homes alongside homeowners and community members. In partnership with Habitat and other local organizations, residents also transformed a blighted property into a neighborhood gathering space called the Community House and engaged in beautification projects like painting murals and planting trees. Additionally, the coterie developed a youth entrepreneurship academy where budding entrepreneurs learn how to develop and pitch business ideas.

Tina Bingham, executive director of the McComb-Veazey Neighborhood Coterie and Lafayette Habitat’s community development director, says, “The Quality of Life Framework provided a way for us to easily explain how the quality of life in our community can be improved by us all doing our parts and bringing our skills and knowledge to the community.”

Earning trust and sparking change in Massachusetts

In Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Central Berkshire Habitat used the same Quality of Life Framework to work with residents in the city’s Westside neighborhood, a post-industrial community that has experienced high rates of unemployment since the closure of a major manufacturer in the 1990s.

Central Berkshire Habitat worked with Berkshire Bridges, the local resident-led coalition, to better understand the community’s needs and help spark changes in Westside. The community came together to install new playground equipment, participate in neighborhood cleanup days and successfully advocate for new sidewalks to improve pedestrian safety. Central Berkshire Habitat established a workforce training program to offer construction trainees practical homebuilding experience in Westside.

The affiliate also commissioned a local artist to paint a mural depicting the hopes and dreams of Westside residents. “Residents are the ones closest to the solution,” says Carolyn Valli, Central Berkshire Habitat’s CEO. “We need to listen to them. The shift occurs when people start believing that their voices will be heard.”

Reaching more communities with our neighborhood revitalization approach

“Based on the success of this pilot, we’re going to continue integrating principle-based approaches that center equity in our efforts,” says Tawkiyah Jordan, Habitat for Humanity International’s vice president of housing and community strategy. “We’re building on what we learned by focusing on inclusive and participatory approaches, anti-displacement efforts, justice-oriented solutions and market-based strategies.”