Habitat for Humanity Metro Maryland

Our goals are to partner with families to build or improve a place they can call home. Through homeownership, we help to break the cycle of poverty and change lives, one home at a time. We believe that a decent place to live that is energy efficient and accessible with an affordable mortgage enables a homeowner to save more, invest in education, pursue opportunity and have more financial stability.

Habitat for Humanity Metro Maryland's (HFHMM) programs serve low-income families who partner with us to build strength, stability and self-reliance through housing. Our focus is on home ownership because we believe it provides the means, over the long term, for many families to experience improved health benefits, decreased reliance on government assistance, increased graduation rates for children, decreased likelihood for children to become involved in crime and expanded opportunities to improve their economic circumstances.

As part of the partnership process, each family submits an application, participates in a home visit, and if chosen, commits to volunteer to help either build or repair their home as well as participate in homeowner education courses. The concept of sweat equity is an important one for Habitat because through it, the partner families learn the various elements of the construction process and gaining invaluable maintenance and repair skills that can help them once they move into the home. Additionally, the sweat equity requirement demonstrates a families willingness to follow through on their commitments and gives them a greater sense of ownership of their home. For Habitat partner families who are purchasing a new or rehabbed home, they must complete between 200 to 500 hours of sweat equity, depending upon the number of adults over 18 in the family. Families in our repair and weatherization program complete between 8 to 12 hours, depending upon the extent of the project.

Through home ownership, our programs provide two ways for families to partner with HFHMM. First, we build new homes and rehab foreclosed properties throughout both Montgomery and Prince George's Counties. Whether it is new construction or the rehabilitation of vacant, foreclosed properties, we provide the homebuyers a long term housing solution through a 0% interest, 30 year mortgage that reduces their housing cost burden to no more than 30% of their monthly income and helps them to have a stable home with an affordable mortgage. We are extremely proud of our success rate in that of the ninety five homes sold to homeowners, thirteen have been paid in full and only one default has occurred with a partner family. Secondly, we work with existing low-income homeowners to weatherize or repair their homes, thereby removing blight and alleviating health, life and safety issues. As an organization, we realized that it was not enough to create new affordable housing opportunities, but we also had to preserve the existing affordable housing stock and ensure critical health and safety issues were addressed. As explained by Habitat for Humanity International, "A home is not affordable if it is not energy efficient, health and safe throughout the life cycle of the home."

As a result of our work over the past 37 years in building decent and affordable housing in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties and the national Habitat network of over 1200 affiliates, Habitat for Humanity Metro Maryland is well positioned to address the issue of home affordability in our area. First, we have a successful track record in building/rehabbing 95 homes, completing over 430 projects and serving over 1,000 individuals that demonstrates to funders, policy makers, and supporters our ability to capitalize on opportunities for building. Secondly, with long term stability in our affiliate leadership (the President/CEO has been in that position for 14 years, the Deputy Director/Finance has been in that position for 16 years, the Program Director has been with the affiliate for nearly 10 years and the Director of Development has been with the organization for over 7 years) , we have a wealth of experience and connections in the community that help us to successfully navigate the development landscape in our area.

Since our founding in 1982, Habitat for Humanity Metro Maryland has worked with families to build 60 new homes, rehab 35 vacant, distressed properties and complete 430 weatherization and repair projects throughout Montgomery and Prince George's Counties. In doing so, we have issued over $12 Million dollars in zero interest financing, spent nearly $19 Million in the local community in support of our projects and helped over 1,000 people to realize strength, stability and self-reliance through housing.

As we look to the future as part of our five year strategic plan ( FY '18 - FY'23), we plan to complete 100 projects a year (doubling from our current capacity of approximately 50 projects per year) which will consist of two new construction homes and the remainder being a combination of repairs, weatherizations and Aging in Place projects. Additionally, we currently operate two ReStores which take gently used donations of furniture, construction materials, home goods and sells them at discounted prices to raise unrestricted revenue for our mission of building strength, stability and self-reliance through housing.

As part of the affordable housing sector in Montgomery and Prince George's Counties, we seek to move the needle in terms of government policies that affect affordable housing. Thus, in Prince George's Counties, our President/CEO was part of the Comprehensive Housing Strategy Advisory Group to help lay the groundwork for a housing policy in the county which has not had one since the late 1990's. In Montgomery County, we continue to work through the Montgomery County Housing Alliance to advocate for solutions that will help increase the numbers of affordable housing units produced. To that end, our staff worked with members of the current county council to advocate for changes to the zoning regulations governing Accessory Dwelling Units. We are delighted that the zoning changes were passed unanimously by the County Council and we are now looking to educate the general public on this tool to improve affordable housing opportunities in our area.