Habitat World Online

The Challenge of Change

by Jonathan Reckford

Access to land is one of the greatest challenges facing Habitat for Humanity, inside or outside the United States. It is the single greatest constraint to helping more families have a decent place to live.

Eighty percent of the world’s population lacks clear, legal title to the land on which they live. Consequently, families live precariously on lots that could be — and many times are — taken from them without notice.

Outside the United States, we’re finding that a lack of secure land tenure strongly influences our response. Habitat partners across the globe are working creatively toward permanent land solutions. This hard work and innovation, however, are not limited to international building efforts.

Land acquisition in the United States has presented a barrier to house building as well. Many U.S. affiliates, however, are finding creative ways to overcome it. I encountered this recently in Dallas, Texas.

At the time of my visit, the Dallas affiliate was about to break ground on the second phase of a project called Greenleaf Village. Through a partnership with the city of Dallas, the Dallas Housing Authority and private home builder KB Home, the affiliate was able to access land that it could not have obtained on its own. Once a severely economically depressed community and the site of a notorious public housing facility, Greenleaf Village today is a mixed-income community where property values have soared, including those of the 100 affordable homes that the Habitat affiliate has built there.

Dallas has been at the leading edge of a trend of affiliates seeking out larger parcels in an attempt to have a greater impact. They recognize the opportunities mixed-income communities provide. Renee Glover, who heads up the Atlanta Housing Authority and also serves on Habitat for Humanity International’s board of directors, once told me, “We’ve proved over and over that everyone loses when we concentrate poverty. Mixed-income communities give low — and moderate — income families better access to jobs and decent schools and services. Habitat can play a critical role in creating a path and incentive for hard-working, low-income families to transition from subsidized rental housing to homeownership.”

In order to help foster community transformation, Dallas Area Habitat director of real estate Cyndy Lutz says evolution is necessary. “If you’re going to have access to land, you have to be willing to change.” That willingness, Cyndy says, has allowed her affiliate to acquire twice the lots annually that they would obtain through a more traditional lot-by-lot approach.

I read where someone said, “The world moves so fast that there are days when the person who says it can’t be done is interrupted by the person who is doing it.” The world of Habitat is moving fast, indeed, and affiliates like Dallas are definitely “doing it,” leveraging partnerships to acquire land and maintain our focus on transforming communities as well as building homes.