HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF WICOMICO COUNTY
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : m***y@w*************t.o*g
Mission Statement
Habitat for Humanity of Wicomico County is an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International. Our goal is to serve low income families by building safe, decent and affordable homes. Through our Roof and Repair program, we serve low income families with a hand up, not a hand out.
About This Cause
Vision & Mission Habitat of Humanity of Wicomico County envisions a world where everyone has a decent place to live. Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope. With the help of volunteers and our partner family, HFHWC builds then sells homes to low-income families who, by virtue of their incomes, would never otherwise be able to achieve the dream of homeownership. Habitat sells homes using a low-interest, no-profit mortgage. Habitat views its work as successful when lives are transformed and when positive and lasting social, economic and spiritual change is promoted within a community. Authentic transformation changes the lives of all who participate: those who need housing, volunteers, advocates, donors and development practitioners. The Goal Our goal is to serve 15 families with new and rehabilitated affordable housing by 2025, bringing the grand total of homes sold to low income families to 82. We also plan to serve an additional 50 families needing critical repairs or weatherization by 2025 at a rate of 10 per year. Due to our exempt mortgage licensing, we are limited to selling 5 homes and 19 repair loans per year. Other projects can be completed but secured mortgage loans are capped at these maximums. To achieve these goals we have set a fundraising target of 5.26 million dollars. Habitat has partnered with the City of Salisbury and community leaders who are committed to revitalizing the Church Street neighborhood. Other town mayors have reached out asking us to consider their area for our projects. Focusing on neighborhoods is a holistic approach that expands Habitat’s traditional partnership with new homeowners and volunteers to include neighbors and local organizations for far greater impact. In bringing people together, Habitat practices a philosophy of “a hand up, not a handout,” and builds on existing community assets: financial, physical, natural, human, social and spiritual. We plan to explore other towns and cities in Wicomico County that have city water and sewer connectivity. Change begins with continued direct engagement with families and communities, demonstrating what is possible when people from all segments of society work together to address the problem of poverty housing. The Need Salisbury, Maryland currently faces a crisis in its housing market. Salisbury’s current homeownership stands at just 29% -- the second lowest in Maryland and significantly less than the national average of 66.8%. Rental rates are higher than comparable communities across the nation, which places an additional burden on low income families that dream of homeownership. For families to succeed, sometimes the dynamics of their neighborhood have to change. The Church Street neighborhood presents many challenges with high crime, drugs, prostitution and poverty. However, Church Street is near the city center, has a stock of simple, decent housing, has city sewer and water, and is a neighborhood in need of revitalization. The Work Habitat Wicomico has built 66 homes, 20 of which are in the Church Street neighborhood. We have also acquired 6 lots and three homes in Church Street that will eventually provide affordable housing for low-income partner families. 2 lots are buildable in the Kirkwood Neighborhood, pending Health Department perk tests and 2 lots on the Westside have been acquired. All of our building and renovation projects use sustainable building practices and energy conservation measures. To achieve our goal of selling 15 homes and 50 roof & repair projects, each year we will build or rehab 3 homes and repair or renovate 10. We are clustering our development to build a critical mass of homeowners in a concentrated area. We believe these new homeowners contribute to the broader effort to revitalize this core-city neighborhood and is an essential process for building hope and belief that healthier communities are achievable and beneficial for all. In addition to building and renovating homes, Habitat Wicomico provides resources for our Partner Families through mentorships, classes, and counseling for financial literacy, family strengthening, and affordable housing assistance. By helping Partner Families help themselves, they learn how to improve credit, budget for future home expenses, and manage their monthly budget. The Impact After over three decades of work in the community, Habitat Wicomico has seen how a new home improves household health and well-being which contributes to family income and education, both essential to breaking the cycle of poverty. Increasing the level of homeownership in the Church Street neighborhood also provides greater social stability and community cohesion. By promoting approaches that assist low-income families in helping themselves, we in turn help drive the market for housing-related financing and housing improvement services and products accessible to the poor. Improved financial literacy promotes financial stability and self-sufficiency which reduces the vulnerability to the cycle of poverty. When the broad community is engaged in addressing the urgent need for adequate, affordable shelter, we all become less vulnerable and more resilient. Using a national data set, The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University (2001) observed “that children of homeowners have better home environments, high cognitive test scores, and fewer behavior problems than children of renters. They found that these results hold even after controlling for a large number of economic, social, and demographic variables. Owning a home compared to renting leads to 13 to 23 percent higher quality home environment. The independent impact of homeownership combined with its positive impact on the home environment results in the children of owners achieving math scores up to nine percent higher, reading scores up to seven percent higher and reductions in children’s behavior problems of up to three percent”. Our biggest success story in May 2016 when homeowner Joanna Wilhemi received her PharmD diploma from The University of Maryland, Eastern Shore Campus. This is a true testament to our impact. Her daughter is in college now. Samuel Angelot, another homeowner, just shared with us that 4 of his 6 children are now higher education: 3 are currently attending Wor-Wic community college and one started at Towson in September 2018. Their career ambitions are: Materials Engineering, Pre-Med, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. His 5th child will graduate from high school in 2019. Property taxes, permits, construction materials and services in the entire supply chain and all the ancillary real estate activities roll into calculating that figure, according to a studies conducted by Salisbury Universities’ BEACON department at the Perdue School of Business. Specifically, they found that operations and activities by HFHWC in 2017 supported $2,247,564 in total Wicomico County economic output, 21 local jobs, and generated $719,385 in local income, leading to and generated $19,033 in local tax revenue. This means every $1 spent by Habitat for Humanity results in economic activity of $1.60. For each home built, the total economic output in Wicomico County is $223,307 during the construction. Building 1 home also increases local labor income by $70,068 and local tax revenue by $2843 during construction.