“Housing is the frontline in the fight against climate change,” writes Habitat CEO Jonathan Reckford, who joined leading experts, governments and more at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in January.
The Habitat for Humanity store is the official one-stop-shop online for all of your Habitat for Humanity merchandise. Your purchase supports our vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to live.
Each year since 2007, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree on display in New York City is milled and donated to Habitat for Humanity to use in construction projects. Lumber from the 2022 tree was used to build a deck and planter boxes at Sarah’s Habitat home in Corinth, New York.
Sarah and two of her three daughters, 7-year-old Adeline and 10-year-old Abigail, decorate their front porch for Christmas, ushering in the first holiday season in their Habitat home in Corinth, New York.
But even after the holiday passes and the lights and ornaments are placed into storage, Christmas will remain a permanent fixture for the family of four. That’s because their deck was made using lumber from the 2022 Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
Sarah and two of her daughters plant vegetable seeds in a planter box built from the lumber of the 2022 Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
Each year since 2007, Tishman Speyer, the owner and operator of the Rockefeller Center, has donated the iconic Christmas tree to a Habitat affiliate for use in construction. Lumber from the 2022 tree — an 82-foot, 14-ton Northern Spruce from Queensbury, New York — was sent to Habitat Northern Saratoga, Warren and Washington Counties following the holidays. Sarah and Habitat volunteers used the lumber to build a detached side deck and two planter boxes.
Sarah says the deck will be a hangout spot for the family to grill and spend quality time. The family has already used the planter boxes, spreading out soil and planting sweet pepper and carrot seeds. Waiting for the vegetables to sprout will require time and patience, a lesson Sarah hopes her kids learned while watching her journey toward homeownership.
Lumber from the 2022 Rockefeller Center Christmas tree was used to build a deck and planter boxes.
“I worked on getting my credit up and improving my savings for almost eight years to be able to purchase a home,” Sarah says. “My kids can see that if you put effort into something, something will come out of it. I hope my kids gain patience and understanding that things don’t happen right away, that it does take time.”
Sarah and her daughters rented an apartment before moving into the four-bedroom home she rehabbed with Habitat’s help. Sarah felt her children didn’t have a safe space to play freely and express themselves. Now, she has peace of mind knowing Adeline, Abigail and 9-year-old Allison can enjoy the playset in their backyard and paint the walls in their bedrooms without asking a landlord for permission.
More than anything, Sarah is happy her family has their own place to grow.
“Just to be here, to have my kids grow up here. We’re continuing to make it our home instead of just a house.”— Sarah, Habitat homeowner
Habitat is transforming underutilized buildings and vacant apartments into adequate housing, demonstrating that upgrading existing buildings can be a viable component to addressing the global housing deficit.
Many cities around the world have a shortage of adequate housing and an abundance of underutilized buildings and empty apartments. Habitat uses innovative and scalable approaches to addressing the global housing crisis, like converting underutilized spaces into habitable places to call home.
Habitat-led pilot projects and research in Hong Kong, Poland and the United Kingdom have shown that reviving empty spaces can be a viable component to increasing the adequate housing stock, particularly in dense urban areas where limited land availability and high construction costs create barriers for development.
Habitat Great Britain released a toolkit sharing best practices for converting empty spaces into habitable residences.
In Hong Kong, roughly 220,000 people live in subdivided flats — apartments split into dormitory-like units about the size of a parking space. More than 100,000 residents are in line for public housing, but the slow rate of construction means they can expect to wait an average of 5.5 years.
Habitat Hong Kong partnered with Juan Du, Ph.D., an architecture professor at the University of Hong Kong, to explore housing solutions to accommodate residents as they await public housing. Dr. Du’s research revealed that thousands of temporarily vacant buildings could be used to generate quality housing and community spaces in high-demand areas.
Through Habitat Hong Kong’s Housing in Place pilot project, they worked with developers in 2022 to convert four floors of a vacant building in the city’s Jordan neighborhood into an 8,000-square-foot community center and emergency shelter. Dozens of local nonprofits used the space to hold mental health workshops, provide free legal counseling and host food distribution days. Two of the floors in the converted space were used as a temporary shelter with private beds and other amenities.
Jo Hayes, Habitat Hong Kong CEO, says the center operated for six months and served as a prototype where the government and other stakeholders “could actually see this building conversion in action so that then they would scale that up.”
Many European countries face similar housing deficits. In the United Kingdom and Poland, Habitat’s efforts to convert underutilized spaces and renovate empty apartments have helped improve access to adequate housing.
In 2018, Habitat Great Britain and the council of Barking and Dagenham, a borough in east London, partnered to transform an unused storage unit into a four-bedroom apartment that accommodated three young people leaving foster care and a live-in care worker.
The success of the conversion inspired Habitat Great Britain to launch a three-year project in July 2020 to research empty spaces and demonstrate the feasibility of converting buildings into livable units. The project expanded its scope to include empty space conversions and research in Poland led by Habitat Poland.
The research in both countries revealed that local authorities own thousands of empty or underutilized properties.
While conducting research, Habitat Great Britain and Habitat Poland also adapted several empty spaces into flats. In Poland, renovating vacant apartments helped Habitat shelter more families fleeing the war in Ukraine. Mateusz Piegza, Habitat Poland’s program development manager, says they’ve renovated more than 20 flats in Warsaw and Silesia, the majority of which have been rented to refugees.
Habitat Great Britain and Habitat Poland each released a toolkit sharing best practices for converting vacant spaces. Their hope is that governments and organizations across Europe will use the toolkits to scale the conversion of empty spaces.
Around the world, Habitat is reimagining affordable housing through our innovative programs. We don’t see a boarded-up building as a vacant space destined for demolition; we see it as an opportunity. By incorporating the repurposing of empty spaces into our scope of work, Habitat is able to help more families open doors to adequate housing.
Habitat’s MicroBuild Fund supports microfinance institutions with the capital and technical expertise necessary to increase the availability of housing loan products for low-income customers. See the real-world impact of the MicroBuild Fund’s investments and milestones reached in the latest annual report.
In fiscal year 2023, we helped 13.4 million people build or improve a place to call home. Take a look through our interactive annual report celebrating the impact our work has made in communities around the world over the past year.
This research piece analyzes the extent to which the sheltertech sector has been courted by climate tech and impact investors and examines potential avenues for overcoming investment barriers in the sheltertech space as well as what can be done to attract more climate tech investors into this area.
