Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
¶ … Habitat for Humanity
Across the country and around the world, homelessness is a major problem for more than 100 million people who lack a permanent dwelling of their own (About Habitat for Humanity, 2016). One organization that has been committed to addressing this problem is Habitat for Humanity, a Christian ministry that helped nearly 7 million homeless people irrespective of their religion or race. Since its founding in 1976 in Georgia (Tucker, 2009), Habitat for Humanity has become an international organization in more than 70 countries with more than 1,400 local affiliates in the United States alone (About Habitat for Humanity, 2016). Inspired by former President Jimmy Carter's efforts with this organization and the worthiness of their mission, I volunteered to participate in a Habitat for Humanity project in 2014 that involved the demolition of an abandoned house and construction of a new house on the site. This paper provides a description of this memorable experience, followed by a summary of the research and important findings about this experience in the conclusion.
Today, Habitat for Humanity (hereinafter alternatively "Habitat") offers those in need of decent housing a "hand up" instead of a "hand out" by requiring prospective homeowners to invest their about 500 hours of called "sweat equity" in their new homes in order to qualify for a mortgage from Habitat for Humanity (Tucker, 2009). According to Davis (2002), this sweat equity investment on the part of prospective owners is part of the organization's philosophical approach to helping people help themselves....
In this regard, Davis (2002) advises that, "The philosophy of Habitat is not to provide a free house, but an opportunity to own a home through the work of the family and their ability to pay" (p. 78). The organization carefully screens prospective homeowners to ensure they satisfy the eligibility criteria and family support services are provided where needed (Davis, 2002). In addition, donated monies are used to buy the land, equipment and professional services that are needed to complete a housing project that cannot otherwise be acquired by charitable donations (Tucker, 2009).
Besides these resources, Habitat for Humanity projects rely in large part on volunteers from the local community, and a newspaper article about a project in my city convinced me that this organization could use my help despite my lack of carpentry or other construction skills. In any event, I believed I could contribute in the demolition process. "After all," I thought, "how hard could it be to tear down a house?" Well, it turned out that tearing down even a dilapidated old house was an enormously challenging enterprise that required the efforts of all 100 or so volunteers that showed up the first day of the project.
After milling about for awhile, the volunteers gathered in a semi-circle to listen to opening remarks by a Habitat for Humanity representative that was in charge of the project. Following a brief nondenominational prayer, and the introduction of the family who would receive the house upon completion (a mother and father and their three children who were naturalized citizens who…
References
About Habitat for Humanity. (2016). Habitat for Humanity. Retrieved from http://www. habitat.org/how.
Davis, J. (2002, September). Making a difference through Habitat for Humanity. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences, 94(3), 77-79.
Tucker, M. (2009, September). Habitat for Humanity: Can mortgage asset utilization be improved? Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies, 15(5), 73-76.
Autobiographical Account of Racial Relations in the Community My Autobiographical Account of Racial Relations in My Community "Despite my time studying race and ethnicity, I have been in the racial minority very seldom;" such has often been my own life as well (McKinney 2004 p 19). The community I reside in is typically a white majority, but has been developing to come into closer proximity to other minority groups. While these groups
Autobiographical Memory How we remember our own lives is a huge factor in how we view ourselves in general. As such, our autobiographical memory can both impact and be impacted by our mood and mindset. The concept of the autobiographical memory is incredibly complex, and is often varied based on individual experiences and mood sets. The notion of the autobiographical memory is a complicated one for sure. There is a vast body
Given the fact that my upbringing was somewhat strict, at the age of 18 I decided I wanted to take control of my freedom and started to do things that I pknew others would not approve of. This is why I decided to get married at this age, although I was advised to do otherwise. It seems that my decision was not a correct one, since we divorced when
Autobiographical Narrative of Colonial American Life The rise of the colonial era in the 1600s and 1700s was a time of reckoning and awakening for very many of us. Living in this time in the divided regions of America had its fair share of challenges for every person. It was worse if you are an immigrant from other worlds or had come in as a slave worker. These challenging times dictated
The driver's head was bloody like mine, but he was conscious. He didn't look at me, and didn't say anything. I noticed that the car had four passengers; it might have been a mother and father, and two daughters, both very close to my age. The eldest was on her cell phone. "at the intersection of State Street and Main. There were three cars involved," she breathed gently. "Are you guys
By "story" I do not mean that the ways in which they understand (and enact) their lives are somehow false, fiction rather than fact. Rather, I am using the word in what might be seen as an essentially Jungian way: Each person's biography can be seen as a narrative, a story that the self tells about the self and to the self. It is the most fundamental story in