Habitat for Humanity is known for building homes. Costs have some chapters pivoting : NPR
Some Habitat for Humanity chapters are altering their model and using factory-built housing on some of their sites. It’s a change for the organization and for its volunteers.
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Volunteers with Habitat for Humanity have been building homes since the 1970s. These days, the nonprofit is still at it, but the model for some of it’s chapters is changing, along with the role of volunteers. Addie Costello with Wisconsin Public Radio reports.
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ADDIE COSTELLO, BYLINE: On a spring afternoon, Kahya Fox maneuvers around the mounds of dirt surrounding four new homes in southwestern Wisconsin. She climbs a set of makeshift stairs that lead to a tarped wall and front door. The outside of the homes need work, Fox says. But on the inside?
KAHYA FOX: We’ve got a really beautiful backsplash all around. We’ve got really beautiful higher-end appliances and range hoods.
COSTELLO: Fox is the executive director of Habitat for Humanity of the Greater La Crosse region. She walks through one of the nonprofit’s latest developments. The three bedrooms have new carpet. There’s a walk-in closet. And the bathrooms have…
FOX: The soft-close drawers, like (mimicking drawer closing).
COSTELLO: But only one detail on the inside of the house reveals how it got there. A missing strip of drywall between the kitchen and living room shows two walls pressed together. That’s because a Minnesota factory built and shipped the mostly constructed home on two semi-trucks.
FOX: There’s really nothing that we need to do other than, you know, put the two pieces together, hang up some trim and then these houses are complete.
COSTELLO: That means volunteers only need to help with the homes’ garages and landscaping. Fox says that’s a major change for the decades-old organization.
FOX: The quintessential putting-the-walls-up-with-volunteers has kind of been, since forever, how Habitat does things.
COSTELLO: But with skyrocketing construction costs, Fox says following the traditional model would have prevented them from building more housing during a time of high need. She estimates that they saved at least $80 per square foot on the Habitat homes in Hillsboro. They were built, shipped and ready for tours in a fraction of the time it takes to complete an on-site build. Adrienne Goolsby is the senior vice president of U.S. and Canada for Habitat for Humanity International. She says Wisconsin affiliates aren’t alone in adopting new building models. The organization has affiliates across all 50 states, and Goolsby says several have already used factory-built options.
ADRIENNE GOOLSBY: Housing’s dynamic. It’s not static. And we, too, as a network and affordable housing developer, have to evolve.
COSTELLO: She expects the number of affiliates using factory-built options to continue growing. But just because volunteers aren’t always hammering together a single-family home doesn’t mean they aren’t needed.
GOOLSBY: Volunteers will always be a part of Habitat’s secret sauce.
COSTELLO: And the organization also requires home recipients to meet a set amount of sweat equity hours. The La Crosse-based Habitat affiliate chose Katie and Russell Bessel for 1 of 10 factory-built homes in Hillsboro. Although the couple’s home will arrive nearly finished, they plan to fulfill their required hours by doing things like working at a Habitat for Humanity retail store and writing thank-you notes. Both are accessible options for Russell, who’s paralyzed from the waist down. Right now he struggles to maneuver his wheelchair around their scrunched apartment. Every night, he watches his family eat dinner from his bed in the living room.
RUSSELL BESSEL: I’m tired of that. I want to sit down and have a family meal.
COSTELLO: In their new house…
BESSEL: There will be a island in the kitchen to where I can roll underneath and just raise my chair up and eat dinner with my family.
COSTELLO: Habitat for Humanity will provide the couple borrowing assistance to keep their monthly mortgage payment affordable based on their income. The couple spent the last several years bouncing around the state to find reliable housing.
BESSEL: This is the end of the road for us. Like, this is finally ours.
COSTELLO: While the Bessels’ future home won’t be built or shipped for months, they are already planning to host Christmas 2026.
For NPR News, I’m Addie Costello in Madison, Wisconsin.
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