Habitat for Humanity is about affordable housing – it’s a hand up not a hand out, and because they do mortgage subsidization for 50-80 AMI they aren’t able to house homeless people.
A little more about Habitat for Humanity…
Interview With Adriana Sirinian, President of the Habitat for Humanity, Macaulay Chapter
Grace: What is Habitat for Humanity exactly?
Adriana: Okay, so it’s a non-profit organization and their mission in New York City is a little different from international because the international one includes Christianity. All of them have a Christian-base but they’re open to every religion. It was just started by a family from the South who wanted to do it within Christian faith and by doing it in such a way where it brought people together instead of the classic idea of religion of tearing people apart. So its basically to build affordable housing and home ownership within New York City. Their mission in New York is to allow for diversity. The focus is mainly on home-ownership but that’s hard to do because of renting
Grace: Yeah, and because gentrification is happening now and everyone is moving away.
Adriana: Yeah, so what habitat is doing right now to try to stop that from happening, well first, in terms of affordable housing, what they’ll do is buy homes either that have been abandoned so they can buy them for very cheap. A Couple of weeks ago, we did a build and they bought the house for a dollar from the state government because it basically a useless home. It needs a lot of work for it to be livable.
Grace: Okay.
Adriana: Most of these have like, holes in the ceiling, have been flooded. A lot of times, we just start it from scratch. So yeah, they buy the homes for as cheap as possible. Right now, they’re also doing a project in the Bronx, which is actually the biggest, it’s a 57 unit, it will be like a co-op. They’re trying it out as a co-op because they want to eventually do something called a CLT (Community Land Trust. Bernie Sanders started this in Vermont for affordable housing . The 57 unit thing is called the Sydney House and it’s in the Bronx. It’s the biggest habitat has ever done in the US, possibly in the world, but I’ll have to check on that because it incorporates so many families. 57 families, it’s crazy. It’s huge though.
Grace: Everyone in those units are like “poor” right, and that’s why habitat is doing all this. Even though they don’t have much money, they still have a place to live.
Adriana: I can also talk about the ways they decide for families. I can also send you materials. There’s also websites that will give you information on it. We have a data-base on it. Okay, so, what the Community Land Trust are, basically, you team up with people living there, ideally, non-profit, which is where habitat would go in, and people in their community would buy the land to keep homes from going up from their original price. So it’s a way to keep…
Grace: It’s a way of maintain it.
Adriana: Basically, the way to maintain, so a lot of what would happen sometime with homes with habitat and with families. Obviously, habitat want their families to accumulate their own wealth, so families are chosen that are between, what’s called 50% and 80% AMI (Average Median Income). So 100% would be the average Median income of New York City, so people making 50-80% are obviously making much less. They are hoping to eventually house people who are between the ages of 30 and 50 by creating these community land trusts that helps subsidize.
Grace: They want the families to start creating their own income right? They won’t want them to rely on habitat for humanity.
Adriana: Yeah, that’s the problem. The reason why they can’t do lower…Wait what were you saying?
Grace: Oh, because I do witness a lot of people who do the bare minimum just so the government can help them and fund them, so habitat is pretty smart for that, to know.
Adriana: Well, what the problem is, is that they can only subsidize a mortgage so much so they need it to be…like.. they team up with banks that specifically knows habitat’s mission and know that families are going to pay, and also, habitat will help out with what they can cause they don’t want their house to foreclose. I think with habitat in New York City, there has only been one house that was foreclosed because the family was unable, but they do everything that they possibly can. They have a program where they keep the relationship so that if anything was to happen, Habitat can make another deal with a bank–
Grace: Okay, so they really do need that trust. Like, Habitat is putting a lot of trust in the family.
Adriana: Yeah, they have a lot of trust. It’s huge on the relationship because families have to agree to hold their relationship with habitat. Before they receive a home, they have to do 500 hours of sweat acuity, meaning like, they volunteer, and it’s not necessarily on their own homes, it might be others, before they receive their homes.
Grace: Okay.
Adriana: And, um, they way that they’re picked, they have to be in that range of median income and sometimes, families aren’t. and some families are chosen who may need them because a lot of people may need affordable housing. And what they’ll do, is give them recommendations of how they can make their applications stronger for the future, so they’ll meet with you after the whole application process. Sometimes, families don’t have enough income, which is usually the main issue, or like, with a history of bad credit. So they give them ways of trying to.
Grace: So habitat is a really hopeful kind of thing.
Adriana: Yeah, and families that had been denied in the past have been able to come back and get a home.
Like, they’ll say try to get a job in this, so like, you’ll have a little bit more… like, they give them specific ways and connections to like, better their circumstance.
Grace: Yeah, because when I was doing this project, they asked me if I was sure Habitat for Humanity was only for New York and I’m so glad I met with you because this is perfect.
Adriana: Yeah, they are ones obviously, like they’re called affiliates of habitat international, which is in Georgia, but each one is like another chapter. Each one is their own non-profit, so they would need to file their own 501C3, which is the non-profit, and they get to do their own things, but if they like, break rules of habitat international, they are no longer an affiliate.
Grace: It is a big trust thing because a lot of people take that to their advantage, so it is definitely understandable, esp. with urban renewal and gentrification.
Adriana: Yeah, it’s really hard. Interestingly enough, sometimes when you try to advocate on behalf of Habitat in certain areas in Brooklyn, there are some volunteers that went out and try to get people to sign these paper house campaigns which basically ask elective officials for either certain property tax, cuts, or supporting CLT and this person said they he doesn’t believe in what habitat does. He was a real estate person. It’s like the biggest bang for the buck kind of thing.
One site that Habitat for Humanity uses is the National Low Income Housing Coalition
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