After a disaster, affected Habitat for Humanity affiliates often need additional field support.

Disaster Corps helps with:

• Disaster preparedness planning.
• Post-disaster assessment.
• Affiliate capacity building.
• Resource development.
• Logistics.
• Community development.
• Volunteer coordination.
• Construction management.

Disaster Corps Volunteers assist with:

• Providing field and technical support to local Habitat for Humanity affiliates.
• Reducing the impact of disasters.
• Preparing for future disasters.
• Internal capacity building.

Volunteers:

• Do you want to volunteer for Disaster Corps? Visit the Interested Volunteers page.
• Are you a Habitat affiliate in need of Disaster Corps Volunteers? Contact Disaster Corps for an informational packet

 Read our Disaster Relief Newsletter for Fall 2011

Recently, I was given the honor of delivering the 12th annual John T. Dunlop Lecture at Harvard University. The lecture is sponsored by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. My purpose was to either persuade or remind the business leaders, students, academics, policy makers and others who were gathered that access to affordable housing is a vitally important issue that requires action from all sectors of society. I wanted them to join me in the belief that people of widely varying incomes can be successful homeowners, and I hoped we might leave as better advocates with a renewed sense of urgency for tackling difficult challenges.

My talk focused on three myths that I often hear about affordable housing:

Myth 1: Housing is important, but it is not at the top of the list. The reality is that affordable housing is central to education, health, employment and economic development.

Myth 2:  Affordable housing is someone else’s problem. Housing at all economic levels has to be set in the context of community.  If we are to provide affordable housing for all, then public, private and social sectors must work together.

Myth 3:  Homeownership really isn’t for low-income people. We need the full spectrum of housing products, and people of many income levels can be successful homeowners.  At Habitat, we believe that owning a house is a “power move” for many low-income families.

I shared examples of compassionate and ingenious responses concerning shelter for some of those affected by the 2004 tsunami in Asia; of a community in North Carolina that has been transformed from an unsightly center of crime and blight to a thriving and inviting place to live; and about the health, education and livelihood improvements that have resulted from our efforts to provide housing solutions in a village in Brazil.

I find that while almost everyone knows of Habitat, few realize the breadth and depth of our global work so I welcome these chances to remind people that a world of hope starts at home. I urge everyone to consider the effect that stable housing has in communities all around the world. Ponder the fact that poverty housing affects everyone — across demographics — and that it takes everyone to address the challenges of ensuring adequate shelter for all.

Meet the Berg brothers, David, Isaiah and Nathan.

They are riding their bikes in a Pan American expedition from  Alaska to Argentina.

What makes them even more amazing and special, is that they are riding for a cause.

They are riding to support their local  Lake Agassiz Habitat for Humanity in Eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota.

Their goal, $60,000 to help build the house when they return home next summer.

“Each day is consumed with hard riding through some of the most spectacular places between Anchorage and Ushuaia, Argentina, our ultimate destination. And yet we ride with one eye looking homeward, to our local Lake Agassiz Habitat affiliate, which helps folks in need in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota. We want to help build a house with Habitat when we return home next summer. We have met people from all over the world who have been inspired by what we are doing and are kind enough to donate.”

You can read more about and follow the Berg Brothers on their amazing  journey here at Bound South.

Lakeland Habitat supports this just cause.  From pediatric care, nutrition and counseling to child-friendly shelters and temporary schools, defending kids in the coursework of emergencies requires that nonprofits, businesses, and federal, state and local governments work together.

Habitat for Humanity is working with Congress and the President to establish the National Commission on Kids and Disasters to be sure that children are never an afterthought in a catastrophe again.  Read more and sign our petition today! Click Here…

Make a donation today and support Lakeland Habitat’s Housing efforts to help the less fortunate.

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This year, Lakeland Habitat for Humanity will celebrate its 20^th anniversary and complete its 100^th house (and more). We are proud of what we have accomplished, but are constantly looking for ways to make our community stronger and healthier. At this time, we look to you to help us lay the groundwork for the success of future projects by participating in a brief survey based upon the information below.

Please click on this link to be directed to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KB5PQS8

Looking Forward

To meet today’s and tomorrow’s challenges, Lakeland Habitat for Humanity is considering a major campaign to raise $12,000,000 over a five-year period. This investment from donors, volunteers, residents, corporations and foundations would restore historic neighborhoods, create a one-of-a-kind community, and celebrate 20 years of providing decent housing.

To transform the lives of more families, Lakeland Habitat for Humanity will:

• Partner with Parker Street Ministries and Lakeland’s Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) program to renovate 100+ existing homes in the Parker Street Community through our “Brush with Kindness” program;
• Create Laurel Brook Village, an affordable, mixed-income community of 36 homes on 22 acres of land; and
• Develop energy efficient projects, including an energy-producing solar farm at Laurel Brook Village.  

Role of Community Support

We hope that you will help us plan for the anticipated campaign by participating in a brief survey. I am confident that your guidance will help us lay the groundwork for the success of these innovative and important projects

Please click on this link or paste the url below into your browser to be directed to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/KB5PQS8

Thank you in advance for your participation. All responses will remain confidential.

Claire Twomey

Executive Director

Volunteers work in the rain Monday to hang siding on the 200,000th house.

Volunteers Ross Babbit (foreground) of DIY Network and Robert Hill work on tr

Volunteers have worked through rain and blistering sun alike to build Habitat’s 200,000th house, which is the future home of Koffi Kouassi, his wife Tonya Harper and their children.

The outpouring of volunteer help on this build site, coming from corporations, community residents and youth from all over the world, means that this family will soon leave behind an overcrowded apartment and a neighborhood that gives the children no safe place to play. They will start a new chapter of their lives, one that is full of opportunity and long years of happy memories.

”We’re building more than just houses,” says Ruthie Cambron, who works as volunteer coordinator for Anderson County Habitat for Humanity. “We’re building eternal habitation, and we’re fulfilling the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Without the steady stream of volunteer help over the years, Habitat could not have hoped to reach any of the great milestones it has celebrated over the years: 100,000 homes, 150,000 homes and now 200,000 homes.

The volunteers on this 200,000th Habitat house are extraordinary only partly because of their help in making a such an important milestone possible. When Koffi, Tonya and their family move in, more than one million people around the world will be experiencing the joy and security of a simple, decent home. These volunteers are extraordinary for reasons that are becoming very personal to them–what they’ve meant to the homeowners with whom they are hammering, shingling, painting and sweating as they complete this house.

Find out how Habitat is looking to the future with its 200,001st house.

See how volunteers have helped Habitat reach building milestones in the past.

Will Howell of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, likes the excitement of blitz builds. They have kept him coming back to volunteer for the past three years, but this one has an extra bonus—the chance to work with Habitat’s milestone 200,000th family.

”I love being involved on the blitz day,” he says. “I like swinging a hammer.”

Will is a crew leader for this historic build, and he credits his crew and others on the site with getting the build off to such a great start on Saturday.

”They’re phenomenal,” he says. “We plowed through the interior walls and were up on the roof in no time!”

Will is one of many local volunteers who showed up ready to deepen the dent being put in poverty housing in Knoxville. His work is a celebration of the countless hours put in by volunteers over the years to bring Habitat to this milestone in its history. It is also part of the commitment to continue building until decent housing is a reality for everyone.

But the blessing for Will may be simpler than that. He’s in it for the effect all this sweat and effort is having on the homeowners.

“I like seeing them smile.”

Terri Adams is working on the home of Koffi Kouassi and Tonya Harper in Knoxville, Tenn., helping complete Habitat for Humanity’s 200,000th house built worldwide.

”We’ve been up there in the sun, pounding away!” she says.

As vice president of risk management at Denark Construction, Adams is a volunteer who knows her way around a build site. She also knows the good things that can happen when people work together to improve their community.

Adams is one of several Denark employees working on the Kouassi-Harper house this week. The company has a history of supporting Knoxville Habitat for Humanity with both manpower and funds, and it was a part of the affiliate’s first historic-compatible build in Knoxville’s historic district.

Both as a construction professional and a resident of Knoxville, Adams is happy to be a part of what Knoxville Habitat is doing in her city.

”There’s satisfaction in knowing that you’re working virtually with strangers on a team project, helping someone else achieve a dream,” she says.

Adams is a member of the National Association of Women in Construction, a national organization committed to enhancing women’s careers in construction. Through scholarships and community projects, NAWC helps empower women all over the country to discover their place on build sites. Adams is excited about what this means for Habitat for Humanity sites, where a growing number of women are finding that their contribution can be great.

“Everybody can participate in some way. Everybody can serve out there,” Adams says. “With a little bit of training and confidence in yourself.”