Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity Vancouver is a non-profit organization that wants to build adequate, affordable housing with the help of low-income families, volunteers and donors in order to eliminate the cycle of poverty. The organization believes that every human deserves to have a decent, safe place to live in without worrying about the cost. In addition, they believe that everyone is valuable. This makes low incomers who feel confident enough to become homeowners and cannot meet the qualification for the traditional mortgages apply as Partner Families. Partner Families collaborate up with the organization so that they can purchase houses from the organization. The expectations that the families need to have to become Partner Families are accepting the beliefs that the organization has and living in unsuitable houses with unsafe environment or unaffordable rent. Once the organization accepts the families, they have to complete a task before they have the opportunity to buy a house. The Partner Families need to take part in constructing the houses that Habitat for Humanity Vancouver build for approximately 500 hours of their own time to build their own houses and houses for other families. After Partner Families complete their duty, the organization will sell the habit homes to the families with no down payment and no interest mortgage so that the families can pay for the houses.

Based on my research, I am excited mostly on the part about the fact that Habitat for Humanity Vancouver collaborates with many low-incomers to make affordable houses because of the success rate. I did not know that an organization could be successful by allowing low-income families build their own affordable houses. They do not hire construction workers to make houses for people who need cheap houses. However, I know about an organization in San Francisco that is similar to Habitat for Humanity Vancouver called Chinatown Community Development Center. Chinatown Community Development Center is a non-profit organization that buys and builds affordable housing for low-income families and seniors because there are many speculators that are purchasing houses and evicting tenants who lives in the houses. Once they remove all the tenants, they renovate the houses into expensive houses so that they can sell them for a value higher than the original value for profit. Chinatown Community Development Center tries to prevent displacement for seniors and low incomers by making houses that cannot be in the market. In addition, they try to improve housing conditions, which is the same goal that the organization have in Vancouver. This shows how there are many organizations that use different variety of methods to obtain affordable houses for the same purpose. Beside organizations, there are programs that travel with groups of people to another country to help build homes for civilians without homes. This indicates how people care about sustainability in society by creating programs and organizations in different places. Thus, the information about the organization in Vancouver, which relate back to the organizations and programs in San Francisco makes me feel full of curiosity.


- Stephanie Chan

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