When most Americans hear the words “Habitat for Humanity,” they
likely envision Jimmy Carter hammering a few nails into a wooden
frame in whatever third-world country happens to be his current
cause celebre. Unfortunately, the association with the
unpopular former President, and the connotations that this
association involves — combined with the incorrect assumption that
Habitat is a “giveaway” program that provides houses free of charge
to welfare queens and their ilk the world over — often combine to
overshadow the good that Habitat actually represents.
Habitat for Humanity does not exist to take labor from the
able-bodied and turn it into free houses for those who will not
work to support themselves. On the contrary; it is the ultimate
marketplace result of the conservative mindset in action: men and
women willingly volunteering their time to help those who are doing
(and will continue to do) their utmost to help themselves, and
rewarding those who have been good stewards of their time and their
money, and who simply need one final push to get over the top, and
to become a homeowner.
However, in its fight to accurately portray itself and its
activities, the organization is often undermined by people
affiliated with the organization in some way or another who,
whether intentionally or because of a lack of knowledge,
misrepresent Habitat for Humanity’s purpose, as well as those that
it exists to help.
In mid-November at the University of Georgia, the student-run
affiliate of Habitat celebrated its annual “Hunger and Homelessness
Awareness Week.” This national event, which was sponsored by the
National Coalition for the Homeless and held in cooperation with
groups like the “Students for Environmental Awareness” and “UGA
Progressives,” included such activities as a screening of
Sicko, Michael Moore’s latest film; a student-faculty
forum entitled “Too Many Children Left Behind - Addressing the
Education Gap”; and a “Provide Housing for People with AIDs”
letter-writing campaign.
These events carried out by the UGA Habitat affiliate were not
sanctioned by Habitat for Humanity International; rather, the
students involved in (and leading) the organization were engaging
in activities that Habitat for Humanity would never
sponsor.
The week ended with a “Broken Bread Poverty Meal,” which,
according to UGA Habitat for Humanity’s website, is “a
creative activism event sponsored by Acting on AIDS. Participants
are invited to identify, interact with and intercede for those
broken by the cycle of AIDS, poverty, and hunger. Using a simple
porridge meal, true-to-life stories, discussion, prayer and
advocacy, students are invited to engage their faith and respond
with their hearts and through their citizenship.”
For the last several years, UGA Habitat for Humanity’s
“awareness week,” the climax of the group’s activities for the year
(and generally the only non-meeting activities it sponsors) has
also included a two-day “homeless awareness” project. In this
activity, representatives of UGA Habitat attempt to raise awareness
among their fellow students for the plight of the homeless by
building cardboard huts out of their used pizza, DVD player, and
HDTV boxes, placing those “homes” at the student center in the
middle of campus, and then sitting around in them for a few hours
at a time — while listening to music and eating pizza and other
fast food — before retiring to their comfy dormitory or apartment
bedrooms for the night, satisfied at having done their good deed
for the day.
Unfortunately, it appears that those most in need of raised
awareness are the student members of UGA Habitat, whose activities
— topped off by the supremely insulting cardboard sleepover —
display either a complete lack of comprehension about what it is
that Habitat for Humanity as an organization does (and who it is
that it helps), or a willful misrepresentation of the same for the
purpose of garnering attention and donations, and adding to their
membership new bleeding-heart adolescents who can actually be
persuaded to believe that they are making a difference in the world
by taking a few hour break from their video games to sit in
cardboard boxes.
Then again, given the penchant for sensationalism present among
liberal college-age activists, perhaps UGA Habitat would have a
great deal of trouble recruiting members and getting people to sign
up for events if these student activists — who prefer
meaninglessly symbolic on-campus gestures to real work —
became aware of the truth: that Habitat for Humanity has
never housed an American homeless person. Furthermore, it
has never given so much as a single free meal to a starving
individual, nor provided a free house for a person with AIDS or any
other disease (nor officially endorsed any activities raising
“awareness” for the same).
Instead, Habitat for Humanity pursues the far nobler goal of
using volunteer labor (a word that most college activists are as
unfamiliar with as they are with its synonym, “work”) to construct
affordable at-cost housing for those who have the job, income, and
credit to qualify for a mortgage, but who have not been able to own
a house before due to a variety of reasons.
From Habitat International’s own website (emphasis added):
Habitat is not a giveaway program. In addition to a
down payment and the monthly mortgage payments, homeowners invest
hundreds of hours of their own labor — sweat equity — into
building their Habitat house and the houses of others.
Unfortunately, “good credit,” “homes for those who qualify and are
willing to work for them,” and other merit-based attributes are not
exactly slogans that resonate with today’s activist college
students — a demographic that appears intent on passively (and
sweatlessly) making its mark in the world by raising bogus
“awareness” rather then by actually working to make a
difference.
