Antero and his family worked to secure the home as best they could, despite having to spend the six months following the storm without electricity or water. Their kitchen cabinets had gotten wet and began attracting moths. Antero, a wood artisan by trade, tried tying down the metal sheeting on the roof with cables to keep the rain out. It didn’t work for long. “I was working, but financially I wasn’t very well. There were days without work, the pay was meager, and buying materials was very difficult,” he says.

The road to recovery

After the storm, communication was challenging, especially in rural areas, like Antero and Luz’s neighborhood in Adjuntas. Vans with loudspeakers drove through severely damaged areas sharing information about Habitat’s home repair program.

The couple believed Habitat could be the answer to their prayers and applied. Sixty-four-year-old Luz says she felt like, “the happiest woman in the world,” when she heard they’d been approved. When the repairs took place, it had been more than three years since the couple’s home was damaged by the storm.

Five years ago, AbbVie, a research-based global biopharmaceutical company that has operated on the island for nearly 50 years, donated $50 million to Habitat to help families and communities recover from the devastation of hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 and strengthen access to housing in Puerto Rico. With AbbVie’s support, Habitat has partnered directly with hurricane-affected families, like Antero and Luz, to address their shelter needs. Besides home repair work, Habitat’s holistic program also supports workforce development, securing land tenure and fostering long-term improvement to shelter and land resilience issues.

During their repairs, Antero and Luz’s home received a new roof and kitchen cabinetry, waterproofing of the concrete roof, replacement of an aluminum door and interior wood doors, general electric work, and repair of their balcony and stairs as well as interior and exterior paint. Antero also used his skills as an artisan to help personalize some of the repairs, including purchasing and installing trim for the windows, and he installed a new gas stove.

A safe place to be

“We live more confidently now,” says Antero. “We no longer have leaks. When I saw how the house was and seeing it now, it’s like a load that has been taken off. We even enjoy downpours now because we know we’ll stay warm and dry.”

The couple loves being able to have family over again and looks forward to spending many more joyous occasions with their children and two grandchildren. “Home is happiness,” Antero says.

A multifaceted group of local and international partners are working together to scale the use of cement bamboo frame technology, including Habitat, Base Bahay Foundation, non-governmental organizations, financial institutions, local communities, masons, bamboo treatment centers, and federal and local governments. “Multisector partners have committed to working together with an infinite level of patience and respect for each other to make cement bamboo frame technology a viable building material of choice in the Eastern Terai,” says Eliza.

Habitat and the Hilti Foundation are also working on a cement bamboo frame technology project in the Philippines, which allows for the two countries to collaborate and learn from one another’s efforts.  “Since the nature of work in Philippines resembles that of Nepal, we both learn from each other and present our learnings and discuss programmatic and technical uses,” says Pratik Singh Parmar, a project manager with Habitat Nepal.

Habitat Nepal also receives technical support from Base Bahay Foundation, which advises on best practices for local bamboo treatment centers, cost efficiencies in production and the development of human-centered designs that reflect local preferences while maintaining the integrity of cement bamboo frame technology construction.

Building a strong foundation

Part of Habitat Nepal’s work to advance the use of cement bamboo frame technology includes helping local governments and communities understand the benefits. “Bamboo is one of the only building materials that low-income families can afford to build with,” says Yuban Malla, program director at Habitat Nepal. “Given their financial constraints, they build with untreated bamboo that does not have much structural stability. These families often reside in disaster prone areas, and they are not only affected by heavy winds and fires but are also the first to be hit by floods.”

The cycle of low-income families having to rebuild with bamboo every few years has resulted in bamboo being regarded as a “poor family’s building material.” Habitat Nepal is working to change that perception by inviting community members and officials to visit the cement bamboo frame homes. The visitors can ask residents questions about their experiences with the homes’ durability. Habitat Nepal also advocates to change policies at both the local and federal level in favor of building with bamboo and works to secure government funding to build more homes.

Local governments will provide approximately 50% of cost share for the 500 homes that will be built using cement bamboo frame technology in Eastern Terai through the Habitat-Hilti Foundation partnership. During this building phase, Habitat Nepal plans to engage in market research and testing to engage potential homeowners, financial institutions that can provide loan options for treated bamboo housing solutions, and other important partners to gather data that supports a financially sustainable model that will help increase the availability of affordable housing.

Habitat and the Hilti Foundation are using a phased approach to address and support every aspect of the value chain that will be required to ensure a viable market for cement bamboo frame technology homes in Nepal long-term. “Ultimately, the goal is to scale the inventory of adequate and appropriate housing,” says Enid Madarcos, Habitat Asia-Pacific’s senior manager for urban, land and policy.

The Habitat-Hilti Foundation partnership is working toward the goal of cement bamboo frame technology becoming a self-sustaining industry in Nepal that operates independently and successfully within the country. In order to reach that goal, relationships with the local farming community must be strengthened to ensure the growth and harvest of high-quality bamboo, a sufficient number of treatment centers must be in place to efficiently process enough bamboo to meet demand, the construction workforce must be educated on how to properly build using cement bamboo frame technology and an informed customer base has to be motivated to purchase homes built with the technology.

Fostering dreams and new opportunities through innovative housing

“Home is a start to nurturing every small and big dream of an individual and families,” says Eliza. “By ensuring homes for families that are safe, durable, disaster-resilient and environmentally sound, the Habitat-Hilti Foundation project is contributing immensely to both socio-economic development and environmental sustainability in Nepal.”

Working together to bring innovative housing technologies like cement-bamboo frame technology to scale globally is essential to creating a world where everyone has a decent place to live. “In both Nepal and the Philippines, we are seeing how an innovative housing solution can make a life-changing difference for families,” says Johann Baar, director of affordable housing and technology at the Hilti Foundation and member of the Hilti Foundation executive board. “We are excited to continue to work together with Habitat and a diverse coalition of partners to promote housing and process innovations that have significant scale and impact.”

Startups multiplying impact

Given the global shortage of decent homes, Jane says Habitat’s Terwilliger Center is strategically supporting for-profit startups to multiply the impact of housing solutions.

“We need scale, we need sustainability and we need the private sector to be part of the solution,” Jane says. “We need to work with startups to show them that we believe in them.”

Habitat showcases our belief in startups by not only offering them tools and resources through the ShelterTech accelerators, but also by directly investing in companies through our Shelter Venture Fund. As of August 2022, Shelter Venture Fund had invested a total of $3.31 million in catalytic funds to 12 promising housing startups operating in stages considered too early to attract investment from conventional venture capital firms.

Innovation to reshape the housing market

Across sub-Saharan Africa, millions of families live in inadequate housing. Creating access to affordable, safe housing for all requires new ideas and radical changes in local housing markets. Innovations can lead the way.

“If we don’t support startups, if we don’t support innovation, if we leave it to the solutions that are already in the market, then not everyone will have affordable housing,” says Jane.

By empowering entrepreneurs through ShelterTech accelerators, Habitat helps startups bring products and solutions to the market, changing the future of housing affordability around the world.