Habitat for Humanity

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY International is a nonprofit organization devoted to building housing for those living in substandard shelter. Its professed goal is “to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.”

The actual operation of Habitat for Humanity is somewhat unusual for a private charitable organization. Rather than simply giving housing to those in need, Habitat requires a down payment and monthly mortgage payments from the recipient families, who must also participate in the building of their own home. Homes are built with volunteer labor and donations of money and materials, and then are sold to the recipient families at no profit, financed with no-interest loans. Habitat is a strictly private organization that accepts no government funds for its operations, relying instead on private donations and volunteer labor.

Millard and Linda Fuller founded Habitat in 1976. Since then they have built and rehabilitated more than 175,000 houses and are currently active in 100 countries, including all 50 states of the United States. The profile and work of Habitat received a large boost in 1984, when former President Jimmy Carter became publicly and actively involved in its operations. At that time he personally helped renovate a building in New York City in order to provide adequate shelter for 19 families. Since then he has volunteered his construction skills and time on a regular basis, helping to build housing for those in need, while also lending his very well-known name to Habitat's efforts. The Jimmy Carter Work Project has subsequently become an annual event, with up to 1,000 homes being constructed in a single week.

Habitat considers itself to be an ecumenical Christian nonprofit organization. As such, they see the work that they do as exemplifying “the economics of Jesus.” This is centered on what Millard Fuller calls “biblical economics”: no earned profits and no interest charged on loans. Those involved in Habitat give what they have in response to human need, rather than following the profit motive (the compelling economic force in capitalism).

They see Habitat as a Christian ministry that welcomes people of all faiths, seeing that “everyone can use the hammer as an instrument to manifest God's love,” what Fuller calls “the theology of the hammer.” This explanation for their work seems to recognize the failure [Page 456](and even the impossibility) of capitalism to provide adequate housing for everyone.

It may seem reasonable to think of decent housing as an economic right, something to which everyone is entitled. This, however, is not the case under capitalist ideology. Adequate housing is simply one result of the economic process, and as such, is not guaranteed. No results, that is, goods or services, are specified under capitalism. What is specified (at least in a well-function-ing capitalist economy) is that the economic process follows the rules of the capitalist game. It is the process that is guaranteed, not any particular result. Thus adequate housing, distributed according to the profit motive, will not be available to everyone, with the poor suffering the most.

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