habitat #6: all limbs and digits still intact

this week, i got to play on a roof and also play with a circular saw (but not ON the roof).  cool.  i called on my contact from the build i did with ford a few weeks ago and he let me (and my friend shari) come down to Monroe to work on a house being framed.  he remembered my desire to do "real work" and instantly assigned us to the roof.  egad.  so we climbed on up and nailed on roof sheeting (the big four by six foot plywood panels) for the first half of the day.  neither of us managed to lose our footing and go rolling off the roof, thank goodness.  but we were being extra careful, to be sure.  after that, Dave just casually pointed us to a circular saw and told us to cut wood to a certain dimension to go all the way around the house.  just like that.  he threw a couple other requests at us while we were sawing away, no problem trusting us at all.  and we also helped raise a porch heading.  in the end, there was sawdust in places it just should never be.

oh!  i forgot the coolest part!  one of the mottos of habitat is "simple, decent, affordable."  most homes are quite modest and plain.  this particular house, however, had a special story.  there was a contest with the local high schools for students to design a home and this was the winner!  the kid who made the winning design was there working with us that day.  (as was the future homeowner, which is also really fun.)  this house had a more interesting layout, a garage, and even a small wrap-around porch at one corner!

a little more on habitat…

habitat for humanity is organized by county (at least here in michigan).  the county i live in (washtenaw) is called Huron Valley HFH and they do mostly rebuilds.  they buy houses that have been foreclosed or are otherwise affordable – trying to focus in a particular neighborhood to create a whole neighborhood revitalization – and tear out most of the insides and rebuild.  the house we worked on last week was one of those.  we were ripping down all of the drywall and ceilings, leaving only the framing and outside walls intact.  once sufficiently torn down and cleaned up, rebuilding will start with new drywall and ceilings and go on from there.  sometimes new siding is put up outside, and sometimes if it is good, then the house will just be painted on the outside.  sometimes a new roof must be put on, sometimes flooring, but always new cabinets and finishings.  either way, what starts as a fairly dark, musty, old, broken-down house ends up being shiny and new and bright and beautiful.

one of the nearby counties, Monroe, does the opposite.  for whatever reasons (and i have heard different accounts on both sides), they find it more economical to build new houses from scratch.  (Huron Valley used to do it that way.)  that's where i had lunch with the overall construction manager, Dave, and made a contact so that i could come down and work even when there are not slots available online.  i'll probably be focusing most of my effort for the rest of the summer down in Monroe, so i can get more interesting and structural work instead of painting and yard work and cleaning. 

(to be fair, both groups have staggered starts on many houses this year, so there will be opportunities in both places at various stages of build.  unfortunately, you don't get to check the status of a given house and decide to volunteer there based on what work they'll be doing.)

habitat builds are done with nearly all volunteer labor.  signing up is generally done online, but individual volunteers are not really the norm.  prospective habitat homeowners must put in something like 300 hours of "sweat equity," in addition to paying the closing costs and mortgage for their house.  (habitat is touted as "a hand up, not a hand-out."  most people don't seem to know that the houses, once built, are assessed at fair market value and sold to the owner for that amount.  the real benefit is that the mortgage is either zero- or very low-interest, so the monthly payments are reasonable.)  the other main source of volunteer labor comes from area churches and businesses.  in fact, many times these communities will sponsor the seed money for getting the house built in the first place, as well as providing labor.  the issue for those like me that want to do individual volunteering is that many of the saturday builds are closed for the sponsoring/church/community groups working on that particular house.  in the case where the builds are open, online slots often get filled.  that is why it's so important that i've made contact with Paul in Huron Valley and Dave in Monroe.  through them, i can work on a site even if there are not spots available online.  thus, i can work every weekend, as well as get meaningful work to do while i am there.