Ever organized a community home building project?

Hello there!

I am a Social Worker and have a single mom with two kids on my caseload.

About 1 1/2 years ago she lost her mother and primary care giver to kidney cancer. She lived in the same home with her mother. Her mother did not have insurance and so the medical bills were quite overwhelming.
In the midst of the illness, a predatory lender came in and convinced the terminally ill mother and the mentally ill daughter to refinance the home they were living in and use the money from the refinance to pay for the medical bills. Unfortunately, they refinanced to an adjustable rate mortgage and this summer, like so many other families in the same boat in the US, the interest rates began to creep up.

My client is unable to make the payment on her home and we have exhausted all refinancing and legal resources.

The bright spot at the end of all of this is that she is eligible for Self Help Housing, which is basically like a Habitat for Humanity build. She is required to put in 30 hours of building time per week. She can have a family member take 10 of those hours. If I can organize a volunteer effort to build the homes (there are eight in all being built at the same time by all of the families that have qualified for the build) it will make things so much easier for all of the families involved, especially her, since she is mentally ill and often times not very stable. This is a huge commitment for her.

Have any of you organized a community build like this? I am looking for suggestions and organization tips. The builds that have gone on before this one have taken about a year total and I would like to set the goal that we cut the time in half by having volunteer help.

Thanks for your suggestions!!

What a sad situation.

I've never organized a building project like that, but I have organized lots of community events. The first thing to keep in mind is you Have To Ask For Help. Don't just tell the story and expect people to volunteer. Make a list of things that can be done. Break it down into small pieces, and ask specifically if this person would help with this task.

How do you find the people? Ask other people to find the people. Pick some captains--maybe 4 or 5 people you know you can count on, and ask them to recruit however many manhours you think is you need from each group. Find a diversity of captains--chamber of commerce people, church people, major local employer people, Kiwanis, Lions or other service club people. Youth groups can help--high school students are often looking for a volunteer project for their college applications.

If all the other stuff is done--like getting the materials, etc., then getting the manpower is simply a matter of asking enough people to do X until you get enough to get it done. If you're lucky, it will take on a life of it's own and the volunteers will snowball in. If you're not so lucky, you may have to be the spark for the project for the whole year.

If I lived nearby, I'd help! Good luck!

Karen

Oh, thank you so much for the ideas. I am more thankful than you realize.

I truly had no other plan than to have the paper do a story and give contact information. I have a system in mind to keep track of whom is helping build and when.

I LOVE the idea of recruiting team captains. Perhaps there is a family member in each of the eight families on the build that can be a captain. I also like that you said people won't help unless you ask specifically - I know that already, but reinforcement of that idea will help when I might feel awkward asking.

I am happy for the family on my caseload as far as the fact goes that we were able to sale the house to a private buyer before the foreclosure date. I helped her do a for sale by owner on her home to avoid the relator fees. That was a scary process, as I am not a relator!

Building her own home will be a good thing for her in the long run, but right now, I think that 30 hours of labor per week for her building a home is too much. That is why I really want to get a massive community effort going on this build - she can have some hours banked by all of the people who are coming to help her.

I wish that you lived here too - especially now that I know your "specific asking" techniques - how could you say no?