The Importance of Home

Nearly three years after one of the worst hurricane seasons in U.S. history, former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, led thousands of volunteers back to the Gulf Coast in May, refocusing the world’s attention on all the rebuilding still left to do. Habitat for Humanity of the Mississippi Gulf Coast in Biloxi, Miss., was the host site for this year’s weeklong Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project. Some 1,700 volunteers expected to build 30 new houses, renovate or repair 30 others, and frame 48 more houses for future builds. Well beyond the host site, 17 other affiliates took part in the project, building 200 houses in locations ranging from Houston, Texas, to Mobile, Ala., and planning to build more than 400 total homes by year end.

Suzette Bonin was one of six homeowners getting new houses on a former sugarcane field in southwest Louisiana, in partnership with Lafayette Habitat. Bonin and her family lost everything when Hurricane Rita slammed into Vermilion Bay late in the summer of 2005, inundating their house with 17 feet of water. They stayed in a FEMA trailer until problems with mold and formaldehyde forced them to take shelter in a rental house. “My little girl knows what being a homeowner is,” says Bonin. “She’s only 6, but she knows how important it is to have your own home.”