Inspired by NPR this morning

I heard this story on Habitat for Humanity and the difficulty it is having finding affordable land to build on.

Habitat for Humanity Vies for Affordable Land

Affordable housing for low-income people is an issue very close to my heart, as I spent a year working with Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity. How did I choose to do this? Well, it was my senior year in college and I knew that I wanted to do some form of volunteer/mission work after graduation. Peace Corps was out for me, so I was looking into Americorps, Presbyterian Young Adult Volunteers, Mission Year, and more. Then the choir I was in had to sing before a speech by Millard Fuller (the founder of Habitat), and I decided to stay and listen. His speech seriously affected me (he's a very charismatic speaker and worth hearing if you ever get the chance). He mentioned the Habitat*Americorps program, which I hadn't heard of. I went on to apply and was accepted at Twin Cities program, the second largest Habitat affiliate in the nation.

Most people have the mistaken notion that Habitat gives houses away to people. Wrong. A lot of people think that Jimmy Carter founded Habitat. Wrong. Carter does lead a yearly work project, and is quite involved with Habitat and its work, but he did not found it.

I led parts of construction on a couple of projects in the Twin Cities area, and got to work with several Habitat homeowners. It saddens me to hear that Habitat is having a tough time of it. Lack of affordable land is not just a problem in Georgia. We dealt with the issue in Minnesota. Another issue we had to deal with was requirements for neighborhood associations. A basic rule for Habitat is that you build houses for people, not cars. However, for many of our houses, we were required to build garages because the associations required it.

I hope the affordable land situation improves, but I am not sure I see how it could.