Honolulu Habitat Five years ago, Kristine Esposito was on welfare, living in a transitional shelter with her toddler son.
makes carpenters
out of families
The organization helps low-
By Treena Shapiro
income families to build, and
live in, their own homesStar-Bulletin
Now, at 25, Esposito is married, has another 14-month-old child, and this summer she will own a home on Pele Street, with the help of Honolulu Habitat for Humanity and her own two hands.
Esposito got involved with Honolulu Habitat in 1996 because of the state welfare program's work requirements. A job managing the nonprofit organization's office helped her get out of transitional housing, off welfare and into the two-bedroom apartment her family rents today. Now Honolulu Habitat is also helping her build her own home.
It is a story Jose Villa, executive director of Honolulu Habitat for Humanity, would like to tell more often. After helping 32 families build homes since 1988, the Honolulu Habitat board decided to expand its thinking, and a new business plan calls for building 302 homes over the next five years.
"Once we changed our mind-set, all these things started changing," Villa said. For example, the Habitat for Humanity affiliate is now tapping into more sources of funding and has more than $32.4 million in grants and gifts to work with, with the possibility of even more in the near future.
The most significant change in the board's thinking is in the definition of a home - which has now expanded to apartments, in addition to single-family dwellings. Honolulu Habitat is in the process of acquiring a condominium complex with 106 units families can renovate and make their own.
Working with apartments enables Honolulu Habitat to help those without land and those who do not qualify for the $60,000 mortgage required for a Habitat home. About 90 percent of its clients have been Hawaiian, simply because they can get land from the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, an option not open to other ethnic groups, Villa said. "It was a stretch for us, figuring out how we'll be able to offer a greater stretch of the community access to our services. In reality, we would build for everyone if we, or they, had the land."
With the apartments, land is no longer an issue, and families who only qualify for $40,000 to $45,000 mortgages now have the opportunity to become homeowners.
The affiliate is not giving up on houses, though. A gift of 250 lots from Hawaiian Home Lands and a $10 million revolving loan from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs will help Honolulu Habitat continue serving the Hawaiian population.
Esposito is one of the lucky few who have been able to get land on an affordable 55-year lease from the city. Her home will be part of a duplex shared with another Habitat family. Both families have been helping build the home since 1999 - one of the things Esposito says adds to its value.
"With a Habitat house, you actually have something to do with the building of it. It's special like that, other than going out and buying a house that you had nothing to do with but paying for it," she explained.
The home serves another purpose as well: It is part of an apprenticeship program for women trying to break into the construction industry. Working with other agencies is another major shift in thinking for the Honolulu Habitat board.
Last summer, Villa was instrumental in helping to form a "hui," or network, of nonprofit agencies serving the same low-income population. "Habitat works with the families who have effectively been written off, a whole segment of the population whose needs aren't being addressed - families of four making $32,000, some as little as $15,000," Villa said.
But while part of the eligibility criteria for the Habitat program is being willing to put 500 hours of "sweat equity" into your home and someone else's, there are other requirements to qualify for a mortgage, and Villa sometimes finds himself having to turn applicants down. "I'd rather give them hope than say no, and now I have a basis for giving them hope." Rather than rejecting clients, Villa can now refer them to other agencies that provide transitional housing, job training or financial education.
Villa is seeing the first success from the hui. The latest Habitat home is being built in Papakolea for a family moving out of transitional housing run by Angel Network Charities, which referred the family to him. "This is the first one that actually worked out," he said.
Villa and his wife are renters, but far from begrudging families their own homes, Villa glows as he describes helping a family get out of dilapidated houses into simple, decent Habitat homes.
"We're changing their futures," he says with awe.