Homes aren't free

I recently wrote about the problems Habitat for Humanity is having finding volunteers for its construction project. A comment on the article page refers to the people being gifted this home.

I wanted to clear up that misunderstanding, because it is a very important point for the organization I debated long and hard about explaining in the article. I eventually didn't include the information but apparently it would have cleared some things up.

The people who eventually end up living in Habitat homes actually buy them. They are price-reduced by the volunteer labor, not free.

The current home's cost is continually rising as the completion is delayed and problems push back the project, and that cost will be filtered down to the family, who takes out a mortgage on the home, just like everyone else.

Habitat doesn't want to give away homes, they just want to make it affordable for low income families. And the families are required to put in many, many hours on the homes, but the generally do them on either the home before or the home after their project is done, since it is often very difficult to get the full amount on the home they will eventually move into.