As an international nonprofit, Habitat for Humanity has made its name helping people with financial challenges move from renting to homeownership.
The organization was one of the more prolific homebuilders during the depths of the recession, offering interest-free, affordable mortgages to financially qualified families willing to donate hundreds of hours of “sweat equity” at job sites and the organization’s stores.
But these days, Habitat’s Chicago-area affiliates face their own challenges. Donations are down, as is the number of volunteers, and it has been hard to find potential homeowners in some areas. Now, the nonprofit is trying to work past the lingering local effects of the housing crisis, one that destroyed the financial stability of some potential buyers and scared away others.
Borrowing a marketing strategy tried by Habitat in other cities, the organization is erecting a subdivision of sorts on North Michigan Avenue, just north of the Chicago River, for the next four days, building the shell of one home and framing walls for a dozen more. Habitat hopes the public display of walls, windows and doors will help it raise $2 million, add 1,000 volunteers and increase to 500 the number of families served annually by 2018, with half of them receiving new homes.
It’s an ambitious goal. Last year, only 49 of the 193 Chicago-area families assisted moved into homes. The rest were low-income homeowners who needed help with maintenance and weatherization projects.
“There’s been a lot of partners in affordable housing in the area that do support those in need, but Habitat believes we can partner even more with families and organizations,” said Matthew Johnson, CEO of Chicagoland Habitat for Humanity, the umbrella organization whose job is to unify the local affiliates’ messaging and fundraising. “Many people have heard of Habitat in general, but they are unaware that Habitat serves in eight locations in the Chicago area and that we serve in their own backyard.”
Last year, the Illinois attorney general’s office awarded almost $3.2 million from its share of the national foreclosure settlement to Habitat affiliates in Chicago, McHenry County and the south suburbs to build and renovate homes. Finding additional funding streams has been difficult, particularly because some affiliates specialize in new-home construction while others are either rehabbing donated, foreclosed properties or sprucing up neighborhoods by making repairs to existing housing.
“The glamour is associated with building or rehabbing a new home,” said David Tracy, who recently retired as executive director of the south suburban affiliate, where donations are down 50 percent from their peak. “Donors don’t understand why critical home repairs are essential. It’s an education process making funders aware that critical home repair is the next step. We all need the same thing. All the affiliates are suffering from a lack of unrestricted donations.”
Compounding Habitat’s fundraising challenge is the fact that groups seeking to expand the supply of affordable housing are having to tap philanthropic groups more often as government funding declines, according to Kevin Jackson, executive director of Chicago Rehab Network, a coalition of more than 40 housing groups.
“Housing insecurity in Chicago is expanding rapidly,” Jackson said. “The cost of housing continues to go up, and people’s incomes go down.”
Habitat’s Lake County affiliate has been among the area’s most active and successful in its efforts to build new homes, having constructed a 33-home subdivision in South Waukegan. More than 70 people attended an April meeting to learn more about the program, and 33 applied for a home. Nine of those families were recently approved, and ground has been broken on two of the residences.
“There’s still an invisible poverty that exists,” said Julie Donovan, executive director of the Lake County affiliate. “There’s people living in horrible conditions. There’s plenty of people who got afraid during the foreclosure crisis, and we did see our application numbers dip. There was this cautiousness, and there still is cautiousness.”
In the city’s West Pullman neighborhood, where 16 homes eventually will be built, the affiliate also is battling crime rates and working to interest area renters in homeownership.
Donations of foreclosed properties by banks have helped affiliates stretch their dollars and assist more families more quickly, but they have also meant dealing with the issues that come with older, dilapidated homes.
For instance, Habitat for Humanity South Suburbs, which is focused solely on rehabs, now tests for radon in all its donated homes after a home in Lansing was found to have high levels of it. No others tested have produced similar results, Tracy said.
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