Habitat For Humanity And My Rooftop Revelation

I am a building contractor in Lynchburg, Virginia. Almost 20 years ago, I was asked to donate some time using my carpentry abilities to help frame a home for a good family that needed a hand. I quickly learned about an organization called Habitat For Humanity. This home was the first home to be built in our town by Habitat For Humanity.

I showed up one Saturday morning with around fifteen other people and didn't know what to expect. By the time the day was done there was a small home framed on what was just a concrete slab some eight hours earlier. I built homes for a living, but there was something very special about this project. Everyone worked very hard and no one was getting paid, yet we smiled all day long.

We worked side by side with the family who was buying the home. The family was a good hard-working family, but their income just covered their living expenses and rent in a substandard home. They were not able to save enough for a down payment to buy a decent home. Habitat was allowing them to work on the house and their "sweat equity" hours became their down payment. Habitat would then sell them the home without charging them any interest or any profit. The entire concept hooked me immediately. I knew that I would be back to volunteer again.

I experienced an eye-opening and life-changing moment several years later on a Habitat rooftop in Lynchburg. A Jewish friend of mine called me because he knew I was a believer in Habitat. His synagogue had decided to sponsor a Habitat home, but there was a problem. Habitat does much of their building on Saturdays and that didn't work for the synagogue. They needed to find a builder willing to lead a group of volunteers on what happened to be Palm Sunday framing the home. I don't do that well sitting in the pew on Sunday anyway so I welcomed the chance to do my praying with a hammer in my hand.

We had a great day working and finished covering up the roof as the sun was going down. As I stood on the ridge of the roof, high on a hill overlooking Lynchburg, it hit me like the proverbial bolt of lightning. Now follow me on this. Here I stood, a retired Catholic boy who now attends a United Methodist church, working with a Christian based organization, on a home sponsored by a Jewish synagogue for a black Baptist family. At that moment, I realized that no matter what your vision of the Supreme Being is, this is what he or she had in mind. It was with that Rooftop Revelation that I realized this is truly what life is all about.

If you have yet to find the feeling you receive when you give of yourself, I want to encourage you to reach for it. If you listen to your heart instead of your head you will find your place. When you do you will never be the same.

Comments

[moenbailey]

I hate to be a wet blanket, but that said. Habitat doesn't build a very good home. I have built a lot of them and been asked by Habitat to figure out how to fix many that were already built. As a project manager for one of Habitat's larger corporate donors (10 years), a building contractor, and a former Habitat Supervisor it was always an incredible struggle to get Habitat to build right and not easy. I have managed well over 10,000 volunteers. ( I stopped the other year) They were as a whole a great group of people who really wanted to help, I always felt very lucky to work with them. The problem is that building a good quality home takes skill and many of the Habitat personnel don't possess that skill. It's hard to expect supervisors who don't know how to build well to show others how to do it. That ignores those who just don't care.

One of the most disappointing realities of Habitat is how many of their homeowners are in danger of losing their homes. As reported in Business Week last year, and I believe supported by ACORN, over half of Habitat homeowners had been allowed to cash-out refinance making it unlikely that they would not lose the home to foreclosure. Habitat's original finance program would have made that impossible. It was a good idea that like many was lost in volume over quality.

[TomGerdy]

moenbailey,

You really have missed the boat.

First, you need to check your information. Habitat's worldwide record on foreclosures is pretty good. It is sad to me that as long as you must have had to do this to have managed by your count well over 10,000 volunteers, you are trying to paint a picture of a horrible situation. I have volunteered from coast to coast with Habitat and found some things that you seem to have missed. I have seen many safe, decent, affordable, good quality homes built by powerful volunteers of all different skill levels. They worked hand in hand with good people who are buying the homes who just need a "hand up".

You seem to have missed that fact that hundreds of thousands of people's lives have changed because they have a safe and decent home to live in. You seem to have missed the fact that volunteers lives have been changed because they found a way to give back to the world.

I worked on a Habitat home in rural Virginia in November 2007. Someone pointed to one of the voluteers and quietly told me that man grew up in a Habitat home. She continued to say that he had donated $10,000.00 to help build the home we were working on.

I was at an event last year where I met a woman who told me that I had worked on her home almost 20 years ago. She said that she had made her last payment. She continued to tell me that having a nice home gave her the opportunity to raise 15 foster children in that home.

Two weeks ago, I saw a woman and a teenage girl in a store. The woman hugged me and thanked me for helping build her home about 12 years ago. She introduced me to her daughter who was a toddler when we were building and bragged about how well her daughter was doing in school. She continued to say that her house would be paid for in less than three years.

Habitat, just like every organization has it challenges. As many years as you have helped with Habitat, you must have had many powerful and even magical moments. That is what Habitat and life is about. Build on those.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is credited with the following words.
"Tearing to pieces is the trade of those who can not construct."

Peace,
Tom Gerdy

[moenbailey]

I hate to be a wet blanket, but that said. Habitat doesn't build a very good home. I have built a lot of them and been asked by Habitat to figure out how to fix many that were already built. As a project manager for one of Habitat's larger corporate donors (10 years), a building contractor, and a former Habitat Supervisor it was always an incredible struggle to get Habitat to build right and not easy. I have managed well over 10,000 volunteers. ( I stopped the other year) They were as a whole a great group of people who really wanted to help, I always felt very lucky to work with them. The problem is that building a good quality home takes skill and many of the Habitat personnel don't possess that skill. It's hard to expect supervisors who don't know how to build well to show others how to do it. That ignores those who just don't care.

One of the most disappointing realities of Habitat is how many of their homeowners are in danger of losing their homes. As reported in Business Week last year, and I believe supported by ACORN, over half of Habitat homeowners had been allowed to cash-out refinance making it unlikely that they would not lose the home to foreclosure. Habitat's original finance program would have made that impossible. It was a good idea that like many was lost in volume over quality.

[mbellecats]

Amen.

[fcsakes]

Thank you for a smileful message this February morning.

I believe those moments of "rooftop revelations" are true happiness...when all is well with the world, even if for the briefest of moments.

[tcagle]

If these folks' houses could have solar panels installed, they could avoid most of their monthly power bills, too. That would be a great thing, for them and for us.

[Beelzebufo]

Yours is an enlightening, upbeat story. A little glimpse of light in a long dark night.

[TomGerdy]

Beelzebufo,

The night is only as dark as we allow it to be. We are in control of the switch. We can light when we choose.