HABITAT FOR HUMANITY East Bay/Silicon Valley

Mission: Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope.
Vision: A world where everyone has a decent place to live.

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY EAST BAY/SILICON VALLEY believes that everyone deserves a decent place to live. By creating, preserving, and expanding access to affordable housing, we provide families with the opportunity to transform their lives, gaining the strength, stability, and self-reliance they need to build a better future. Our innovative model builds partnerships with families who contribute sweat equity, volunteers who give their time, and donors who contribute financially. We reinvest mortgage payments and leverage donor dollars to maximize our impact. Families gain economic stability and build a foundation for the future—for themselves, their children, and generations to come.

Unstable housing can:
• Lead to overcrowded and substandard living conditions
• Cause health problems such as asthma and depression
• Hinder a child’s performance in school
• Leave little to no money in savings for a family’s future

START WITH HOME. The rest will follow. The affordable housing crisis is well known and widespread. Four out of five residents in our service area cannot afford to buy a median priced home in today’s market. For households with low incomes, the high cost of housing makes it nearly impossible to create stability for their families, much less get ahead.
Decent, affordable housing is the pivotal first step in changing a family’s future. Whether it is building affordable homes in high-density developments, revitalizing neighborhoods through critical repairs and renovations, or providing financial counseling that equips families with the tools to become homeowners, our goal is the same: empower families to transform their lives through homeownership.

Programs & Services

Homeownership
We partner with families with limited incomes to achieve their dream of homeownership. By purchasing a Habitat home with an affordable mortgage, a family gains stability and security, and builds a strong foundation for generations to come.

Home Preservation
We support limited-income homeowners faced with major repairs and modifications that are out of their financial grasp. By making vital repairs, we improve homeowners’ health and safety, prevent displacement, beautify neighborhoods, and keep communities intact.

Housing Counseling
As a HUD-approved agency, we offer one-on-one counseling, workshops, and first-time homebuyer classes. Through financial, budgeting, and credit education, as well as pre- and post-purchase counseling, we improve financial health and bring the dream of homeownership within reach.

HABITAT’S IMPACT goes beyond families to our community and the planet.
Education
Homeownership offers the stability families need to build self-reliance and a strong foundation for future success. Homeowners are able to escape the anxiety of rent hikes and eviction threats, investing in themselves and creating a legacy for their families. Homeownership gives families with limited incomes the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty.
Homeownership is correlated with a host of positive success indicators:
• Children of homeowners have higher educational attainment.
• Young children of homeowners see higher achievement in math and reading, and exhibit fewer behavioral problems.
• Teenaged children of homeowners are more likely to stay in school.
• Homeowners’ children have higher lifetime annual incomes.
Health
Dr. Megan Sandel of Boston University School of Medicine puts it in stark terms: “A safe, decent, affordable home is like a vaccine. It literally prevents disease.” Indeed, for many Habitat homeowners, their Habitat home is a radical departure from their previously overcrowded, hazardous, or substandard housing.
Studies have shown that stable, affordable housing is closely tied to health:

• Families with affordable housing options are at a lower risk of lead poisoning and exposure to mold and other allergens, which can trigger asthma
• When a family pays a high proportion of its income toward housing, health suffers as less income goes toward healthy food and health care expenses.
• The instability of renting can be disruptive to health care. Children without stable housing are more likely to use costly emergency services.
• Homeowners report greater life satisfaction, self-esteem, perceived control over their lives, and physical health.
Stability
In a challenging and unstable housing environment, families with limited incomes are often the most vulnerable to the whims of the market. These hardworking families face a daily, monthly struggle to meet their housing costs, while contending with a fear that an eviction, a rent hike, or simply an unanticipated expense will mean displacement.
For families like these, a stable, affordable place to call home means:
• The ability to put down roots in a community
• No disruption in schooling
• An investment in themselves – in their savings, in their education, in their retirement, in their passions, in the generations to come.
Community
Homeowners have a refuge from the whims of an unpredictable rental market. As homeowners move less frequently than renters, they have the opportunity to become more deeply integrated into the fabric of a community. Homeownership lends greater stability to a neighborhood. Homeowners are more likely not only to build strong, stable lives for their own families, but for their communities as well.
Homeownership has strong connections to community:
• Homeowners spend more time and money in maintaining their homes, contributing to the value and image of a community.
• Homeowners are shown to be more involved in their communities, with a higher likelihood of volunteering.
• Homeowners are more likely to be politically active.

Our model is a unique, sustainable way to combat the Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis.
We are making change for generations to come.
We invest in people. We empower people – hardworking people with limited incomes – to invest in themselves. Habitat homeowners purchase their homes through a nonprofit mortgage and receive financial counseling to ensure they are prepared for successful homeownership. Through a range of innovative, sustainable, solution-oriented programs, we make affordable homeownership a reality for more people.
Our work is possible because of PEOPLE LIKE YOU
YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT Donations of all sizes fuel our mission and provide critical funding we need to build in one of the most challenging housing markets.
YOUR TIME Habitat homes are built with the hearts and hands of volunteers. Your time volunteering on-site not only builds homes, it connects Habitat families to their future community.
IMAGINE WHAT MORE WE CAN BUILD Together, we do more than believe in change, we build it. An additional gift today brings our 5-year housing pipeline into reality and builds a legacy of generational strength, stability, and self-sufficiency.