Letter to the Editor: Don’t apply for Habitat

Columbia Gorge Habitat for Humanity describe themselves on their website as a low-income housing project. Unfortunately, this leads uninformed people and churches to assume that Habitat actually builds housing. By not being extremely clear in publicizing the limitations of their program, Columbia Gorge Habitat for Humanity deludes some people into thinking this program is helping to solve the housing shortage in the gorge.

Habitat for Humanity builds houses one at a time for a very small group of people in poverty who meet the program’s financial limits and win a drawing. The contest winners then have to participate in the construction of the house. This is a very difficult requirement to meet unless you have a large extended family living in the immediate area.

A Habitat for Humanity contest winner haughtily told me, “Habitat doesn’t build houses for people who don’t have families.” I did a little research and found that that was not the case. Habitat International does not limit the opportunities to win a house to only people with children. However, the Columbia Gorge Habitat group has never built a house for people without children.

The comparison between what kind of house my family can get and what kind of house a Habitat for Humanity contest winner gets is galling to me. My family might be able to replace our decrepit trailer in this decrepit trailer park with a new manufactured home but we do not own the land underneath it. We will never be able to build equity in a new house because it is not on a piece of property. A Habitat for Humanity house is stick built and will appreciate along with the other houses in the neighborhood. A Habitat for Humanity contest winner is guaranteed to never have to pay more than a third of their household income for housing; we expect to pay half of our monthly income. It is frustrating to have to explain these facts over and over again.

The blatant unfairness is disheartening. Sure, in three counties over the course of 17 years, 25 contest winners got houses they needed. But the poorly housed population has exploded. The signs announcing a new Habitat for Humanity house only serve to remind the working class that they are not eligible for decent, safe, and affordable housing.

Sincerely,

Heather L. Thompson

The Dalles