Gulf Coast recovery community collaborations

The catastrophic housing needs resulting from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita led Habitat for Humanity to bring together diverse organizations to rally around the cause of rebuilding the Gulf Coast while creating affordable, sustainable housing solutions across the region.

Collaborative relationships help maximize limited resources, prevent duplication of efforts and ultimately provide more homes than would otherwise be possible.

Habitat for Humanity has sought out partnerships in the following areas:

Family development and case management
The Salvation Army and Lutheran Social Services case management partnerships refer and pre-screen potential Habitat homeowners, bringing buyer-ready families to the local Habitat affiliates. The partnerships have resulted in 600 qualified applications being sent to the Gulf Coast affiliates. The Salvation Army has contributed more than $1.5 million in down payment assistance to 150 Habitat for Humanity homeowners, and also allocated $7.4 million to support the 2008 Carter Work Project in the Gulf Coast.

Additional partnerships with the American Baptist Churches and Disciples of Christ Churches have also provided down payment assistance to 75 Habitat partner families.

Existing housing

• innovative partnerships with Church World Service and Rebuilding Together have helped clean up and repair existing homes for families affected by the storms.
• Habitat committed $4 million to Church World Service (CWS), a faith-based relief, development and refugee-assistance volunteer organization, to assist in the repair of 600 hurricane-damaged homes in a two-year period. In the first year, Church World Service distributed $2.6 million to more than 30 Long-Term Recovery Committee community groups and funded 415 total projects for hurricane recovery in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Habitat’s partnership with Church World Service was recognized with the “Award of Excellence” by the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster in April 2007.
• Habitat is supporting Rebuilding Together, the nation’s largest volunteer-based organization revitalizing and preserving homes for elderly, disabled and low-income homeowners. The support includes assisting with the operation of Gulf Coast Rebuilding Together affiliates, facilitates relationship building between Rebuilding Together and Habitat affiliates, and renovates hurricane-damaged homes for an estimated 200 families per year.

New affordable housing alliance
Habitat helped bring together the Gulf Coast Rebuilding Alliance composed of the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta/Hope Community Credit Union (ECD/Hope), a major regional community development lender, and four of the nation’s premier housing and community development organizations: Enterprise Community Partners, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), NeighborWorks America and Habitat for Humanity International. The alliance promotes affordable and mixed-income housing in Gulf Coast rebuilding. The GCRA is developing the capacity of local communities to address their housing needs, and building and advancing public policy associated with hurricane recovery and affordable housing.

Notable accomplishments of the GCRA include providing input to the states of Louisiana and Mississippi on their affordable housing rebuilding strategies. The group’s input helped shape the structure of the Mississippi Phase II homeowner compensation plans, the renter subsidy program for small property landlords, potential subsidy programs for developers of mixed-income housing and the public housing rebuilding program.

Habitat for Humanity and NeighborWorks America
Habitat is working with NeighborWorks to offer a multi-state housing resource counseling operation to assist homeowners with the difficult decisions of whether to sell, rehabilitate or replace destroyed homes; obtain and leverage financial and mortgage workout assistance from government, lender and philanthropic sources; and prepare first-time homebuyers for homeownership.

Joint land development
The GCRA has assembled nonprofit development partners to facilitate the acquisition and development of large, multi-family, mixed-income, mixed-use properties that Habitat could not undertake alone. The groups will lend their expertise to develop affordable housing in the Gulf Coast. Habitat and two NeighborWorks Organizations (DASH for the Gulf Coast and The Resource Foundation) have been collaborating with local Habitat affiliates in land purchases and developments.

In addition, Habitat for Humanity of Mobile, Ala., has a joint development under way with the Volunteers of America which will add additional homes for hurricane-affected families.

Financial training
Partnership programs with Consumer Credit Counseling Services of New Greater Orleans and Consumer Credit Counseling Services of Louisiana have provided pre- and post-purchase counseling and financial education for Gulf Coast Habitat applicants.