Five years ago, Habitat set out to accelerate action on home affordability through the Cost of Home campaign, which ran from 2019-2024. Through this campaign, local and state Habitat for Humanity organizations, partners, volunteers and community members across the United States worked together so that 9.5+ million people could have access to an affordable home.
The Urban Institute examined Cost of Home policy successes and noted the transformation the campaign led within its first four years.
See our successes
Discover how the Habitat network successfully created change in housing policies and systems through Cost of Home in our cumulative report.
Why Cost of Home?
Families all across the United States are paying too high a price to cover the cost of home.
At Habitat, we know that a family should never have to spend more than 30% of their income on a home. Yet, 20.3 million households — nearly 1 in 6 — paid more than half their income on housing in 2021.
Everywhere you look — cities, suburbs, rural areas — the stability that home should bring remains out of reach for far too many families.
That is unacceptable.
We know the complexities that surround the cost of home. We also know the struggle, stress and pain of far too many families in our communities. Families who have suffered from redlining, racial inequality and the housing disparities that follow.
Families who have worked hard and still come up short, not because of their own efforts, but because of systemic issues and an inequitable economy. And we know that those with the fewest resources are always the ones who are forced to make the hardest choices.
Everyone deserves to build the foundation for a stable, healthy future for themselves and their families — no matter who they are, where they live or how much money they earn.
Through our five-year Cost of Home campaign, we mobilized our local and state Habitat organizations, our partners, our volunteers and community members across the country to find the solutions and help create the policies that allowed 9.5+ million people to meet their most basic needs.
Get advocacy opportunities right to your inbox
You can stay up to date on our latest advocacy efforts and how you can make an impact on the urgent need for affordable housing.
