Habitat World Online

A Place to Be

by Jonathan Reckford

What would you do if someone bulldozed your home while you were at work, leaving a pile of rubble, your children crying beside the wreckage?

Or what if, after your spouse died, your in-laws seized your home, leaving you homeless?

For millions of people in our global village, these scenarios are possible; for too many, they are reality.

My column in the June edition of Habitat World pointed out that the soaring cost of land is often a challenge in the United States. Internationally, in many places, however, the challenge is less about the cost of land than about the secure tenure of it, less about whether families can afford to buy land than about whether they can lay legal claim to it.

Families who lack secure tenure also lack the peace of mind that comes with knowing their home won’t be razed — or otherwise seized — while they labor to earn money for their family or attend school or visit a relative.

Habitat for Humanity is about building and repairing homes, of course, but we’re also about building strong, sustainable communities. We’re about creating places for families to be — places to be safe, places to be secure, places to be together. We’re about building permanence and stability, about fostering hope, promise and possibility. We accomplish that when families can claim legal title to the home in which they live and to the land on which they root their families and their futures.

The 2006 movie Amazing Grace chronicles the efforts of British politician William Wilberforce as a tireless voice of intolerance when it came to the transatlantic slave trade. In one scene, an abolitionist dinner guest tells Wilberforce, “We understand your problems choosing whether to do the work of a man of God or the work of a political activist.” To which another abolitionist guest, Hannah More, rejoins: “We humbly suggest that you can do both.”

When it comes to the injustice of poverty housing and to the question of whether we must choose between doing the house-building work of children of God or the advocacy of political activists, I, like Hannah More, humbly suggest that we can do both. Through advocacy, we work to change the very systems that lead to poverty housing.

Lack of secure tenure can and does pose a tremendous barrier for the families we want to reach. But something can be done. You and I can be part of the solution. We can help families gain the stability they need in order to claim the enduring hope of a decent home.

Join the more than 30,000 other online Habitat advocates who are making a world of difference. Visit www.habitat.org/gov to register your voice and to speak up today for those who risk losing their homes tomorrow.