Volunteer raises and tears down walls with Habitat Tucson
Building homes, connections with the LGBTQ+ community
Kevin Walters has long been a champion of decent and affordable housing. For decades, he volunteered with organizations devoted to helping families secure safe and stable shelter in his home state of Virginia.
After moving to Arizona several years ago, he was naturally drawn to Habitat for Humanity Tucson’s mission to increase housing affordability in his new community.
“Housing has always been important to me — going all the way back to my grandmother’s house where I was raised. And Habitat makes it easy to give back,” says Kevin. “You can come in with a new idea, and they’ll just take that and run with it and make it happen. It encourages volunteers to do more because we know there’s a willing group of people who wants to support us.”
As a member of Habitat Tucson’s Home and Community Design Committee, Kevin uses his background in feng shui and urban planning to help ensure that every completed home is designed to be an open, accessible, productive and healing space for all. He wants to make sure every home under construction and every Habitat work site are that way, too.
A renewed commitment
In 2005, Habitat Tucson held its first-ever Rainbow Build, which brought together lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community members to make a hands-on impact on the growing housing crisis.
The build also helped shed light on how that crisis disproportionately impacts the LGBTQ+ community. The successful event brought together a diverse array of organizations and people to work alongside a southern Arizona family as they built their forever home. However, without someone to lead them, subsequent events were put on hold.
“I knew there are so many people in the community that would like to help, but we weren’t asking them,” says Kevin. “So I took it on to ask them.” In 2012, the Rainbow Build was reborn.
Under Kevin’s leadership, Habitat Tucson’s Rainbow Build has built six homes alongside families in need of decent and affordable housing. The homes were made possible by funding from LGBTQ+ organizations and individuals and constructed by hundreds of LGBTQ+ community members and allies.
“It started with Kevin having an amazing idea on how to make low-income housing better,” says T. VanHook, CEO of Habitat Tucson. “But in that quest to change homes, he changed a lot of lives.”
A lasting imprint
In addition to the friendships they take away, one of the most meaningful aspects of every Rainbow Build is what Kevin and other participants leave behind. At the site of every build, a rainbow flag is raised and signed by the volunteers and donors contributing to the home’s construction.
“It’s energy. It’s passing positive, incredibly loving energy from all those people to this object which will carry that energy through to the house,” says Kevin.
“People don’t always think about energy, but everything you do leaves an imprint,” he adds. “You want to be sure it’s the best imprint you can possibly leave.”
