WHAT IT TAKES TO BUILD A HABITAT HOME.

By Charlie Allis, Habitat Lakeside marketing intern
At Habitat for Humanity Lakeside, we believe that everyone deserves an affordable, safe, and decent place to call home. But have you ever wondered what it truly takes to build each one of those homes?
​
Connecting with a family in need is the first step toward building a Habitat home. We find these families through our Home Buyer program application process. We review applications and identify individuals who demonstrate a need for safe and affordable housing. They must have a stable income that falls within our qualifying guidelines. They must also be willing to put in 250 hours of volunteer work either at the ReStore or at the home build site.

Getting funding and land is the next step toward affordable housing. The source of most of our funding is monetary and in-kind donations of building materials from generous individuals, sponsors, or corporations who want to make a difference in their community. Our ReStore, where we sell donated (and restored) items as well as new merchandise, ranging from tools and doors to furniture, also helps fund our home-building and repair projects.

We obtain the land we build on mainly through private donations; however, we also purchase and develop land for Habitat homes.

Each home we build requires permits and planning that must be completed before we begin building the house or even doing any work on the land, for instance grading or excavating.

Each project requires a large-scale plan to be made before starting. Each step of the building process must be mapped out and have a timeline, which is important because it ensures that the home will be built properly and efficiently. Without the permits or planning, our projects would be inefficient and unproductive, or literally never get off the ground.

To ensure that we treat each family equally, we also follow specific guidelines for each home. For instance, the size of the family determines the number of rooms in the house. While homes tend to not have garages, each does have an outdoor storage shed.

Our next step is gathering labor. The help of volunteers makes everything we do at Habitat Lakeside possible. We are constantly looking for volunteers and have many different positions to assist in, from building on one of our sites to working as a cashier in our ReStore, which helps fund our programs, including home building. Volunteering on the job site is a great way to learn new skills while having fun and helping others who may be in need. Volunteer work at the ReStore or the job site helps us and helps volunteers help the community.  

Each house that we build has a multitude of steps that must be taken in proper order, ranging from finding a suitable family to build the house for to getting the required permits to finding volunteers. These steps help ensure that each family will have a safe, affordable, and stable home to live in. The final product is rewarding for the family and for everyone who helped along the way.