Habitat for Humanity of Illinois

News

Fall Conference for Illinois Affiliates

Held November 6 & 7

iHotel & Conference Center in Champaign

Habitat for Humanity of Illinois, the State Support Organization, hosted this event for Habitat affiliates and ReStores this 1-1/2 day program, designed to provide high-quality, actionable earning.

This conference offered 22 workshop topics! There was also a workshop track specifically for ReStores on Friday. New this year . . . we welcomed 3 sponsors and 9 exhibitors.

Capacity building was the focus on this conference. Beyond producing more houses, capacity building addresses the increase and efficiency of board development, volunteer management, facilities, mergers, meetings, conflict resolution, marketing, strategic planning, staff, collaboration, and more.

The sessions helped to prepare affiliates to build 100 houses in 2010.

Certified Residential Specialists

For the 7th year in a row, Habitat for Humanity of Illinois has been selected as the beneficiary of the "Chapter with a Heart" fundraiser, hosted by the Illinois Chapter of Certified Residential Specialists, an organization of highly-trained REALTORS.

Each year at its annual meeting in the fall, Illinois CRS holds a silent auction, which

benefits Habitat Illinois. We are very grateful for their ongoing support!

18 Things You Should Know About Poverty

by Rebekah Daniel, Habitat for Humanity International

1. If you know someone who supports a child on a minimum-wage job, you know someone who is poor. There is no county in the United States where an individual can work 40 hours per week at the minimum wage and afford even a one-bedroom apartment at the local fair market rent, according to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition.

2. There are different definitions of poverty -- Basic needs may be defined as narrowly as those things necessary for survival, or as broadly as the prevailing standard of living in the community. Poverty in one area or part of the world may have quite a different meaning than in another. In the United States, poverty thresholds are determined by taking the cost of a minimum adequate diet for families of different sizes and multiplying that cost by three to allow for other expenses.

3. There is more to being poor than not having money -- Lack of access to essential resources goes beyond financial hardship to affect people's health, education, security, and opportunities for political participation. While economic growth is essential to lifting people out of poverty, it is not enough.

4. The lower a family's income, the more difficult it is to find housing.

5. Having a job does not preclude poverty.

6. Owning a home does not preclude poverty either.

7. Women often face more challenges than men in overcoming poverty -- Where women's land ownership is relationship-based, they risk losing access to land after widowhood, divorce, or desertion, which can lead to destitution.

8. Yet women are an important part of the solution -- They use the profits from their microbusinesses to send their children to school and to improve living conditions and nutrition.

9. Your "rainy-day cushion" probably isn't thick enough.

10. Adequate housing is a basic human right -- In 1948, the United Nations identified housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living.

11. Poverty directly affects many, many people every day -- Some 1.2 billion people around the world live on less than a dollar a day, while almost 850 million people -- almost 3 times the population of the U.S. -- go hungry every night.

12. Education can help, but only if children can actually attend school.

13. Poverty is not inevitable -- In 1960, roughly 20 million newborns did not live to see their fifth birthday; by 2006, the annual number of child deaths globally fell below 9.7 million.

14. People still die from being poor -- More than 26,000 children under age 5 die each day, mostly from preventable causes. More than one-third of all child dreaths occur within the first 28 days of life.

15. Reducing poverty here can reduce poverty there, too -- For generations, poor people around the world have left their homes to seek better wages abroad. Today, the money they send home totals an estimated $200 billion a year. In Latin America, remittances are worth more than direct foreign investment, official development assistance, and foreign aid combined.

16. Children notice poverty.

17. In the United States, the issue is affordability -- Severe rent burden can be a greater problem than severely inadequate housing.

18. You can do something about it -- At Habitat for Humanity, we're making an impact together. We're helping others renew the feeling of dignity that substandard housing steals away. Like the Good Samaritan, we're stopping for our neighbor along the way, and lives are being transformed in the process, starting with mine, and perhaps with yours as well.

Millard Fuller 1935 - 2009

Habitat for Humanity is deeply saddened by the death of Millard Fuller, the visionary whose ideas and tireless work created Habitat for Humanity. Mr. Fuller led Habitat from its founding in 1976 until his separation from the organization and his founding of the Fuller Center for Housing in 2005. He died early February 3, following a brief illness. He was 74.

“Millard Fuller was a force of nature who turned a simple idea into an international organization that has helped more than 300,000 families move from deplorable housing into simple, decent homes they helped build and can afford to buy and live in,” said Jonathan Reckford, chief executive officer of Habitat for Humanity International. “The entire Habitat family mourns the loss of our founder, a true giant in the affordable housing movement. Our prayers are with the entire Fuller family.”

The idea for Habitat for Humanity was born at Koinonia Farm, a Christian farming community founded in 1942 in rural southwest Georgia to be a demonstration plot for the Kingdom of God.” Millard and Linda Fuller made their way to that demonstration plot in 1965.

By the time Millard Fuller turned 29, he had earned his first million dollars as an entrepreneur and attorney. But as his finances flourished, his health and marriage crumbled. To save their marriage, the Fullers decided to begin anew. They sold all that they owned, gave the money to the poor and in their searching, landed at Koinonia where they began soaking up the teachings of farmer, theologian, and community founder Clarence Jordan.

In time, Jordan and Fuller launched a program of “partnership housing,” building simple houses in partnership with rural neighbors who were too poor to qualify for conventional home loans. The first house was dedicated in 1969 and others soon followed. In 1973, the Fullers took the concept of partnership housing to Africa. Within a few years, simple concrete-block homes were replacing unhealthy mud-and-thatch homes, and Millard Fuller had a bold idea: If partnership housing could improve lives in Georgia and Zaire, why not the rest of the world?

In 1976, the Fullers returned to the United States and launched Habitat for Humanity International. By the organization’s 25th anniversary, tens of thousands of people were volunteering with Habitat and more than 500,000 people were living in Habitat homes.

Millard Fuller was a prolific writer, authoring 10 books. He had received more than 50 honorary degrees and in 1996 received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. In presenting the medal, President Bill Clinton said, “Millard Fuller has done as much to make the dream of homeownership a reality in our country and throughout the world as any living person.” Jack Kemp, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and former HFHI board member agreed, adding, “When I’m asked about housing success stories from our inner cities, the first group that comes to mind is Habitat for Humanity.”

Among numerous other awards, Fuller was named to the National Housing Hall of Fame and had received the World Changer Award, the World Methodist Peace Award, the Norman Vincent Peale Award, the John W. Gardner Leadership Award and the Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award.

“Millard Fuller’s drive and relentless commitment to affordable housing captured people’s imagination and changed lives around the world,” said J. Ronald Terwilliger, chair of Habitat for Humanity’s International Board of Directors. “His inspiration lives on in Habitat’s work and through its employees, volunteers, partner families, and supporters.”