City of Scottsdale and Habitat

This weekend we had a build sponsored by the city of Scottsdale and they asked us to set up a lunch for them which is not something that we usually do. But in the end it was pretty cool we contacted a boyscout group asking if anyone of them would like to make lunch for the group to work towards their community service badge. I'm not sure what department they were with but the guy that put it all together was very concerned with why Habitat does not build in Scottsdale. Well one we don't have land and seemed like he wanted to work with us on doing some rebuilds but maybe this is wrong of me to assume but I'm not sure how residents would react on have a community of affordable housing in there neighbor. The "Not in my Backyard" still every much affects affordable housing because not many people are educated on it and the real effects it has on a neighborhood.

I think educating residents on the benefits of having organizations like habitat build in there neighborhood. Some may think that we just give houses away to anyone that has not been able to lift themselves out of the poverty level. The families we give houses to have to have good credit and job history, meaning they have to of held a job for a period of time not jump from one to another. The families also have to put in more than 400 hours of sweat equity hours to know the true value of their home and meet the people that take time out of their lives to build them a house. The houses habitat builds raises housing coast in the neighborhoods they build because these are all brand new platinum lead houses, meaning we recycle and build with recycled materials. These house aren't exactlly what someone might think of as affordable houing.

This Week in Habitat

This week in the office i was working n finding parks AGAIN, and I noticed something. In the city of Phoenix there is no charge to reserve picnic areas in the parks but in the city of Tempe there are fees. I dont know about you guys but I have noticed a dramatic difference in the quality of parks between the two city's and maybe its not a bad idea to charge fees because it goes towards the up keep of the parks. If you visit the parks in these two place you would probably think the same thing.

One the job site this week we started two more houses making it a total of nine houses being built right now in the Phoenix Ora Vista community. Now, I'm not sure if it was a full moon or something but it was the wierdest day Saturday. I just don't understand why you would volunteer and come out at 6am to build house and be a jerk about it. If you dont want to be here don't because we don't want to have to deal with you. Also we get a lot of churches around the valley that sponsor a house and its amazing but they always bring too many poeple to their site which is a saftey issue for us and its too hard for our skilled leaders to manager that many unskilled volunteers. We have tryed numerus times to explain this to the church groups but it never changes anything, how do we change this ?

This past week at habitat has been a bit frustrating. I have this job of coordinating the end of the year thank your party for all the volunteers an day boss continues to get on me about this, but what i have found is that one it is too early every park that i have been able to get a hold of does not want to talk about a party in may until February. Which is a bit discouraging when it comes to asking places to donate food and prizes. She also wants options not just one or two parks but an array of them from central Phoenix to Tempe. Do you know how hard it is to get a hold of any one in the parks and rec department, these must have been an area were there have been a lot of cut backs.

As far as working on the job sit, it has gotten to be a bit more exciting. Being able to watch a house be built by the family that will live in it nail by nail is pretty amazing. I believe we have 6 or 7 houses going right now so there is always something to do and amazing progress. But as i have watched and started talking to the habitat construction department it seems that even though this company has been built off of volunteers there is a lot of correction that happens on the days volunteers are not there. So, my question is, is there any better way to build a house with people that have no experience or is it more important to keep the heart of the company and spend money and time on corrections?