|
Help Build this year's home!
Habitat for Humanity General Information
Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry working globally to eliminate poverty housing. Habitat invites people of all backgrounds, races and religions to build houses together in partnership with families in need.
Flower City Habitat for Humanity (FCHH) builds and rehabilitates homes and neighborhoods in urban Rochester, New York. We neither solicit nor accept government funding, relying completely on the support of thousands of volunteers, faith-based communities, and businesses located throughout Monroe County.
How Habitat Works
Flower City Habitat for Humanity partners with the City of Rochester to target the city's most desperate neighborhoods. The city acquires and allocates building lots through foreclosures and demolition, and often improves a targeted street with new curbs and paving.
New homes are built by volunteers -- over 3,000 every year! -- trained and supervised by Habitat's professional construction supervisors. Financial support, materials donations, and construction services are provided by individuals, corporations, and faith groups.
Habitat creates strong neighborhoods in which new homeowners are all stakeholders. A cluster of strong families, working together, build neighborhoods in which the sight of children at play replaces drug dealing and crime. Homeownership creates hope. Through their investment of sweat equity, these families demonstrate self-reliance. FCHH remains part of their lives, offering new homeowners family counseling if required.
Engaging Homeowner Partners
Habitat homes are earned and purchased -- Habitat provides "a hand up, not a handout."
FCHH builds safe, affordable houses at no profit. Homes are purchased through a zero-interest, 20 to 25 year mortgage held by FCHH, and our homeowners often find themselves with a lower monthly payment than they made as renters.
Selection of homeowners is based on a variety of factors:
their need for decent affordable shelter
household income that is 60 percent below the median for the Rochester area
a willingness to partner with FCHH by investing sweat equity and making mortgage payments reliably
Each family contributes 500 hours of sweat equity -- half goes into building their own home and half into building other Habitat houses. New Habitat homeowners complete a series of seven classes and typically become role models for other homeowners in the neighborhood.
|
