Decent Habitat housing unites families in a stable environment--much like the Fairway Oaks community in Jacksonville, Fla., pictured here.

JCWP 2000, Two Years Later
Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.A.

Between 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., when the intense Florida sun softens from white to yellow, tired moms and dads pull into their driveways in a quiet city neighborhood after a long day at work. Children, released from after-school programs and football practices, dump book bags in the living rooms of houses here and stand in front of the refrigerators, looking for a snack before dinner. For those who have already finished their homework, there's just enough time to bike down the street or run through the cool sprinkler before it gets dark.

They're home.

Before September 2000, there wasn't much on this 37-acre urban Jacksonville site except oak trees and derelict apartments. However, the Jimmy Carter Work Project 2000 proved to be a turning point for Fairway Oaks as thousands of volunteers, homeowners, corporate sponsors and professional builders constructed 100 houses in 17 days, and the city began a massive renovation project on the apartments.

Now, the Fairway Oaks Community Education Center presides over the first intersection of the neighborhood of one-story houses and two-story apartments. With several computers and a classroom, the community center offers homeowners and residents opportunities to learn computer skills, cooking techniques and parenting tips. The motivational posters lining the walls offer other lessons, as well.

"You must leave where you are to be where you want to be."

In 1989, Habitat for Humanity of Jacksonville, known as HabiJax, began with three houses and increased modestly by five to 10 houses a year until the mid-1990s. Then, the board of directors decided to push the limits of faith and increase the building at the same rate at which Habitat affiliates were multiplying: 40 percent. This growth rate continued until 2000, when HabiJax built 200 houses.

"Two hundred houses is a lot to build when it's a lot here, a lot there," says board president Joe Honeycutt. "To get to 500 a year, we need to become a developer. I can easily envision building 500 houses three years from now."

And that is the plan. HabiJax dedicates its 1,000th house in December, well on its way to building 500 houses a year by 2005 and filling the need for 20,000 total units by 2022.

"The difference between stumbling blocks and stepping stones is how you use them."

"I don't think we'd be where we are today without that Fairway Oaks build," says construction manager Ray Henderson. "It was a feat of scheduling."

It was also a feat of publicity, networking partnerships and volunteer coordination. The 17 days of the Jimmy Carter Work Project in Jacksonville were preceded by a year of planning sessions, meetings, family selection procedures and presentations to volunteer groups and corporations. The end result: a new presence in the city.

"It put us on the map," says Diane Quick, who served as volunteer coordinator during the blitz. "For months and months, people talked about it. The volunteers still talk about it and wear their T-shirts."

"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door."

This motto is a favorite of Regina Suggs, the program coordinator at the community center. Her hope is to build a multi-purpose center offering high-school equivalency classes, computer classes, parenting programs for grandparents and aerobics classes.

The educational focus of the center complements the work of HabiJax, helping community residents maintain and enrich the lives they have struggled to establish.

"Some people think a home is where you lay your head and eat, but it's a lot more than that," Suggs says.

Nicole Woodard, a HabiJax homeowner, is perhaps more invested in the Fairway Oaks community than most. She works at the community center through an AmeriCorps position and lives down the street from the center.

The education grant she will earn after completing her AmeriCorps term may help her prepare for a career as a dental assistant. Her children make good grades, and their sports trophies cover most of the living room coffee table.

The only thing that sets them apart from other homeowners in Jacksonville is the thrill they experience when they learn another of their friends has been approved for a Habitat house. "It hasn't worn off yet," she says. "When someone else gets one, it starts all over. I get excited all over again."

--Rebekah Graydon

(Return to beginning of article)