Everyone deserves a safe place to live. Housing inequality is a large problem all around the world. In Honduras, the large wealth gap was apparent in housing. It was great to see everyone help build a home for Sonia and her family in Honduras.
Our family selection committee plays a critical and rewarding role of accepting future Habitat Wake homeowners into our program. Kenisha Hinton, a program manager with Wake County Department of Human Services, has served as a committee member for more than a year. After hearing about a family in her church who was building with Habitat Wake and learning about the family selection committee from a friend, Kenisha joined.
Yesterday, the Wake County Board of Commissioners hosted a three hour work session devoted entirely to the issue of affordable housing. As Commissioner Jessica Holmes shared, this is unprecedented in the history of Wake County.
Habitat for Humanity’s mission, like God’s, is truly worldwide. The need for housing does not end at the border of Wake County! Habitat serves families in over 70 countries throughout the world and Habitat Wake is blessed to be significantly supporting the work of Habitat in Honduras, Malawi, and Cambodia. This fiscal year, we will provide funds to enable Habitat to serve 75 families in those countries.
Check out this report on the current state of Latino housing in North Carolina. There are some major disparities and major demographic trends that will have significant impact in the state over the next generation.
http://latinoccu.org/news/the-state-of-latino-housing-in-north-carolina-2015/
Over the next few months, several faith builds are starting, spurring lots of new home construction throughout Wake County!
• On Jan. 7, work began on the Building Independence Project, a collaboration among Habitat Wake, Lutheran Services Carolina and Serving Cup to construct three homes for nine adults with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities. The Lutheran Coalition, together with North Carolina Housing Finance Agency, Thrivent Financial and many generous individuals, is funding this project.
This weekend, Raleigh is experiencing some of the coldest temperatures of the season. The cold is on everyone’s mind. I’m not afraid to admit that I don’t like cold weather. I’m a cold weather wimp. And this may sound cheesy, but every night when I get in bed, I am consciously aware of the house being warm and being grateful for that.
Lent is often known as a time to give up an indulgent food or habit. Episcopal churches in Wake County are taking a different approach to Lent this year by giving volunteer support and funding to build a house with Habitat for Humanity of Wake County. The 2016 Episcopal Lenten Build officially kicks off Saturday, Feb. 13. Representatives from participating churches will construct the walls of the home Saturday morning at Habitat Wake’s new construction facility at 2728 Capital Blvd, Suite 164.
Ken Hyer began volunteering with Habitat Wake nearly four years ago when he and a team of fellow Cisco employees came out to help build a home. Ken enjoyed the process so much that he joined us on the build site a couple more times. Before he knew it, he was volunteering with Habitat Wake every Saturday.
“How can we achieve a certain kind of compassion that stands in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it? For the measure of our compassion lies not in our service of those on the margins, but in our willingness to see ourselves in kinship with them—in mutuality.”