everyone.
FY17 annual report
Dear Habitat Supporters,
Everyone deserves a decent place to live. Every parent wants a better future for their family. Every child deserves to live in stability. Every faith can be put into action. And every hand makes a difference.
San Diego Habitat for Humanity has a big mission - to provide strength and self-reliance to low-income San Diegans through affordable and improved shelter - and everyone came together this year to help our Habitat homeowners achieve the independence they need to build a better life for themselves and their families.
One of the longstanding and founding tenets of Habitat for Humanity is inclusivity, finding inspiration in each other as homeowners, volunteers, and neighbors - to make our communities, and ultimately, our world, a better place. This year we worked in that spirit, and will continue to do so to help local families and entire neighborhoods become stronger, more resilient, and more sustainable than ever before. For everyone.
Lori Holt Pfeiler
President/CEO
With our help, Habitat homeowners achieve the strength, stability, and independence they need to build a better life for themselves and their families.
every home.
every community.
every hand.
Every hand makes a difference. This year, individuals, houses of faith, corporate partners, community groups, students, and military and veteran organizations came together to power our operation. They hammered, sawed, painted, helped in our office, and sold donated items at our ReStores. These are the hands that change lives.
ReStore
San Diego Habitat for Humanity’s ReStores accept donations of gently used furniture, appliances, cabinets, windows, doors, plumbing and electrical items, tools, household goods, and construction materials, and sell them at up to 70 percent off retail price. All proceeds directly fund our mission to build and preserve homes and communities in San Diego County.
This year, we celebrated the opening of our third ReStore - in the heart of National City. It joins the already thriving stores in Escondido and San Diego. We have built and rehabilitated many homes in National City, and are pleased to have the opportunity to become an even bigger part of this wonderful community.
every voice.
Together, our voices can effect major change, and we consistently use our voices to advocate for solutions to affordable housing challenges facing San Diegans and residents throughout the State of California. This year, as part of a coalition of 42 California Habitat affiliates, we helped get a comprehensive housing package signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown. It includes 15 bills created to combat California’s affordable housing crisis. These bills provide more funding for affordable housing development, streamline local government approval of housing projects, restore local government authority to impose inclusionary housing requirements on private housing developers, and strengthen the state’s Anti-NIMBY laws.
While we stayed informed and involved in the passing of the entire housing package, Habitat California was focused on those addressing homeownership, including:
SB 2 (Atkins | San Diego) - Building Homes and Jobs Act
Creates a new $75 fee on real estate transaction documents - excluding home sales - up to three ($225) per transaction, projected to raise $200-300 million per year.
SB 3 (Beall | San Jose) - Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2018
Places a $4 billion general obligation bond on the November 2018 ballot, with $1 billion set aside for a veterans' home loan program.
SB 35 (Wiener | San Francisco) - Affordable housing: streamlined approval process
Forces cities and counties that fail to meet state-mandated housing production goals to approve multi-family, urban development projects that meet certain requirements, such as paying construction workers a prevailing wage.
everywhere.
Your support of San Diego Habitat for Humanity reaches far beyond our community. Every year, we tithe a percentage of our unrestricted fundraising income to support Habitat for Humanity International’s efforts abroad.
This year, we continued to support our friends in Lesotho, a landlocked kingdom encircled by South Africa, and one of the least developed countries in the world. More than 57 percent of the population is below the poverty line. Rampant HIV and AIDS has orphaned 27 percent of children under the age of 18.
Most housing structures in Lesotho are built out of mud, stones, or sticks, and lack proper ventilation and safety. Land ownership and inheritance disputes leave many in desperate need of a decent place to live.
Your support helped Habitat Lesotho serve six families through new home construction, sanitation, training, and land rights advocacy.
We also served four families in Romania. Despite the fact that Romania is part of the European Union, more than five million people, including 2 million children, live in extreme poverty. About 40 percent of the Romanian population has no access to running water, and 35 percent of the housing stock is in a state of complete neglect.
In recent years, Romania has faced terrible floods and harsh winters, leaving thousands in temporary shelters or isolated from main roads and stable food supply. Habitat for Humanity Romania builds and rehabilitates energy efficient housing, apartment blocks, and provides disaster preparedness and response services for vulnerable groups.
The Home Depot Foundation hosted two build events with over 900 volunteers comprised of vendors and Team Depot members. They framed 16 homes for communities in El Cajon and Logan Heights, and constructed 50 playhouses for children of local military and veteran families. In addition to their contribution of time, The Home Depot contributed $465,000.
Thrivent Financial partnered with six different communities of faith to engage over 60 volunteers on six home preservation projects throughout San Diego County. Their gift of $15,000 sponsored a portion of the cost of the repairs to help families maintain stability through homeownership. Thrivent also sponsored our Rock the Heights event in partnership with Point Loma Presbyterian Church to raise $15,000 and engage over 100 volunteers on Neighborhood Revitalization in Logan Heights.
Since 2014, Guild Mortgage has built with San Diego Habitat seven times. Each time they build, they contribute $2,500 and 100 hours of volunteer time toward building new homes.
