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| For Milana McLead, knowing that the individuals mentioned below have become Habitat homeowners brings hope that other low-income families can be helped by Habitat for Humanity. |
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By Milana McLead
What is the cost of living… in poverty? We have only to ask the experts. For a young Romanian couple, the price is the disintegration of their family, as their young daughter must be sent away because the single room in which they live freezes in the winter.
In Ghana, it is a mother’s sleepless nights spent sick with fear of thick, mud walls collapsing and crushing her baby. For a widow in Bolivia, it is the loss of a husband and father to the deadly health consequences of parasites found in thatched roofs and mud walls. In the Philippines, it is the unremitting threat of eviction that steals all sense of security.
And for 14 million households in the United States, it is the constant struggle to afford housing of any kind on less than half of their incomes.
Without a doubt, for people who are poor and inadequately housed, the cost of living exacts a substantial toll every day.
And what of the cost to society? Poverty breeds dependency, entitlement, envy, resentment, vulnerability, desperation and isolation—all a costly drain on humanity. It may be their poverty in the beginning, but it becomes our poverty in the end.
Habitat for Humanity offers hope—for those living in poor housing and for those called to change their world.
Through Habitat’s key principles—sweat equity, no-interest/no-profit mortgages, self-help, community action and local initiative—empowered individuals emerge. No longer isolated or shut out from the economic mainstream, Habitat homeowners seize the opportunity to step up and take hold of their dreams.
This is what—with your help—Habitat is doing about 50 times a day, somewhere in the world. The “why” of it is lodged in our hearts—the connection that is forged as we share another’s joy, as we join hands across the divide, as we receive the gift of the love of a stranger.
This is how we can build a better world. Starting here. Starting now. Thanks for reading…and for building.
—Milana McLead is editor of Habitat World.
“Almighty and most merciful God, we remember before you all poor and neglected persons whom it would be easy for us to forget: the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have none to care for them. Help us to heal those who are broken in body or spirit, and to turn their sorrow into joy...”
—The Book of Common Prayer
