Personal touches, such as plants as decorations, show the pride Habitat homeowners across the United States feel about their houses. This Habitat house in Atlanta features a covered entrance, a common design element.

Putting Fears to Rest
(continued)

"One of the mistakes we may have made was not to inform [the neighbors] every step of the process," Hartley says. "Once we did have contact, I found it was very important for them to know exactly what the next step would be."

Through meetings with the residents and conversations with its city council representative, the affiliate found that a grassroots approach would be essential to win the hearts of the neighbors. It partnered with a neighborhood church to create a redevelopment organization to build four duplexes and a park and used its connections in the local government to secure grant funding to help the non-Habitat homeowners improve their property. The partnership has been so successful that the city dropped the price tag significantly on the Habitat property.

"The next time someone puts out a request for proposal, we're going right to the block, the churches, and get some guidance," Hartley says. "It was a valuable lesson, and we're all the better for it."

Sometimes, it is not the fear of change that provokes a NIMBY reaction but the Habitat house itself. The simple designs that make Habitat houses easy to build and affordable to buy have attracted criticism from neighbors with bigger houses and more ornate architecture. A house is the biggest investment a family may ever make, and if the neighbors' property values were to fall, their financial security could be jeopardized.

After focusing on building very simple one-story houses on concrete slabs in the 1990s, Greater Columbus HFH (Ohio) introduced a new two-story model. The house featured a full front porch, side entrance to the kitchen and poured-wall basement in an effort to soften the criticism that Habitat built only "little boxes" with no regard for the style of the neighborhood. At the end of 1999, the affiliate was in the process of building 13 two-story houses.

Unfortunately, public opinion was slow to register the change. Residents in the first neighborhood the affiliate had built in had voiced their opinions on the older house design to city government officials, and the newspaper ran a critical article. To counter the negative exposure, the affiliate launched a season of intense relationship-building. The city's development director received a personal tour of a few houses and met a homeowner family, as did the member of city council responsible for housing issues. The executive director began attending neighborhood association meetings just to get to know people. Slowly, things began to turn around.

"On one tour of a neighborhood, the president of the neighborhood association failed to pick out the Habitat house in the block of older homes," says Ben Freudenreich, affiliate board member. "Our houses blend in very well now. Obviously, by building two-story houses and adding basements we have increased the cost of our houses and the amount of volunteer labor needed to build them. Building two-story houses also has discouraged some of our older volunteers--and maybe some younger ones, too--because they are not comfortable at heights. But these drawbacks have been offset by the support we enjoy from the city administration and by happier neighbors."

As varied as the NIMBY challenges can be, Habitat affiliates have found that the core principles that guide them during normal circumstances--value for diverse points of view, commitment to the long-term health of the community and motivation to share the love of God in tangible ways--are the same principles that break down the NIMBY barriers. It is a matter of resolve, Smith says.

"A lot of faith and prayer comes into it," he says, "in being willing to deal with people in difficult situations. We might sacrifice a house here and there, but ultimately, we still build."