Homes For Our Troops

It is our goal to ensure that all severely injured Veterans who qualify for one of our homes receives one, and is then able to truly make progress in rebuilding their lives.
Each year these Veterans live without a specially adapted home increases the risk of repeated falls in the shower and on stairs, inability to attend to their children (e.g. giving baths or putting them to bed) due to inaccessible hallways and doorways, and feeling unable to provide for their family.
Once in their Homes For Our Troops (HFOT) home, many Veterans share stories of a new capacity to join in family activities in the home, as well as improvements to their health and wellbeing. By empowering the Veteran, the spouses, parents, caregivers and children who live in HFOT homes with the Veteran also benefit. For many families, their HFOT home offers a sense of togetherness and ease not experienced since the Veteran’s injury. The gift of a specially adapted custom HFOT home provides financial freedom from monthly housing payments, and allows many spouses and Veterans to pursue college educations, entrepreneurship, careers, and therapeutic endeavors and retreats.

Homes For Our Troops (HFOT) operates with exceedingly high standards, and within some simple parameters:
1. Remain committed to our tagline: “Building Homes, Rebuilding Lives”. In practice, HFOT’s daily operations focus on our core competency of building custom, accessible homes where the Veteran wants to live, and staying with our Veterans to assist them with rebuilding their lives. We do this through building strong relationships with other Veteran Service Organizations, non-profits, corporations, and government entities so HFOT can refer our Veterans to the appropriate organization as necessary.
2. Each donation to HFOT, no matter the size, is a demonstration of patriotism and gratitude for those who have served our country. HFOT considers it an honor to steward those gifts, and always ensures that as high a percentage as possible is dedicated to building high quality custom homes for our Veterans. Since our founding in 2004, nearly 90 cents of every dollar spent has gone directly to our program services supporting Veterans.
3. HFOT continuously solicits feedback from our Veterans, corporate partners, donors, builders, and other stakeholders. We use this feedback to continuously improve our program, to refine our home design, and to ensure HFOT always provides best-in-class service to our Veterans and supporters alike.

Since our founding in 2004, Homes For Our Troops (HFOT) has completed over 325 homes in 42 states. Homes exceed ADA and VA requirements, and have over 40 major special adaptations to provide full access to the home for the Veteran. These adaptations include wider halls and doorways; automatic door openers; roll-under sinks, stove tops, and counters; pull-down shelving; backup house generator; sliding windows; roll in shower with digital temperature control; and a master bedroom closet that is a steel reinforced concrete storm room built to FEMA standards. We add other specialized items such as lift systems and voice-activated controls depending on the individual's needs. We build single-level, four bedroom, two bath homes that are energy efficient. These homes are donated to the Veteran, removing the long-term financial burden of housing payments so the Veteran and his or her family can focus on their recovery and their future.
Over the years, we have refined our home plan, and review it annually, soliciting feedback from the Veterans who live in them, in order to make adjustments and improve our product. We have also streamlined our land search process, and are reviewing the other key procedures for completing a home. We conduct an after-action review of each project to constantly adjust how we do business, and learn and disseminate the lessons from our efforts.
We have an outstanding development department that works closely with marketing to generate the revenue we need to continue to grow. We also conduct a review of each of our efforts and campaigns to assess effectiveness and identify ways to improve.
Our land search and construction management teams are outstanding at finding land, contractors, and overseeing the actual construction process. Our construction managers make at least four trips to the home site during construction to ensure a high-quality build, and require our builders to provide photographs and videos of progress. We have a five-person team dedicated to staying in contact with our Veterans to assist them with overcoming obstacles to rebuilding their lives, as well as a team of Veterans and spouses who provide peer mentoring.
HFOT doesn’t do any of this in isolation, however. Partnerships with supporters, family foundations corporate partners, and other Veteran Service Organizations, allow HFOT to build the highest quality homes for our Veterans, and assist them with rebuilding their lives.

Since our founding in 2004, Homes For Our Troops (HFOT) has completed over 370 homes in 45 states. Over the past ten years, we have increased our annual revenue from $16.2M to $31.0M. For Fiscal Year 2023, we are projecting 26 completed home builds as well as 26 land purchases. Although we view the completed home as a pivotal point for our Veterans, the real accomplishments come after the home is built. Beginning in March, 2018, HFOT has sent a biennial survey to the Veterans and their spouse/caregivers living in HFOT homes. The survey looks at several areas, including education, financial stability, and family growth.
With a very strong response rate, the survey results capture the experiences of a majority of the Veterans and families in HFOT homes. It demonstrates the positive results we produce for our Veterans, their families and the communities in which they live.
Over 90% of responding Veterans reported regaining some or much of their freedom and independence since receiving the keys to their home. The number of Veterans who had obtained or were pursuing degrees or trade program certifications was at 15% prior to moving into an HFOT home, and rose to 71% afterward. The percentage of spouses/caregivers who had obtained or were pursuing degrees or trade certifications rose from 14% to 80% once in an HFOT home. There was a 99.5% increase in employment for Veterans once in their HFOT home, and an over 285% increase in employment for spouses/caregivers. By empowering Veterans with an accessible home, survey results show that our program also empowers their spouses/caregivers.
The survey also highlights the financial benefits of our program. Families in HFOT homes reported a 76% increase in savings, accompanied by a 55% decrease in debt. With 57% of responses showing an increase in income, the opportunities gained by receiving a donated home paired with pro bono financial planning are significant.
Although the home is one piece of the recovery puzzle, HFOT Veterans will tell you that having a strong, supportive family is crucial. HFOT prides itself on building a right-size home that allows our Veterans to build and grow their families. Our survey results show that after receiving an HFOT home, the marriage rate increased from 57% to 78%. We are proud that over 230 babies have been born to HFOT families since 2010, and we celebrate each new addition to the HFOT family.
Each home we provide to a Veteran brings us closer to accomplishing our ultimate goal of gifting a specially adapted home to all severely injured post 9/11 Veterans who qualify for our program, and to provide the tools necessary for these Veterans to rebuild their lives. We continue to work to increase our revenue generation capability, awareness of our organization and our mission, and improve our processes to become more effective and efficient.