Our mission: to lift low income families out of the poverty cycle through home ownership.
How it works: Qualifying families buy their homes from Habitat and pay 30% of their annual income towards their mortgage. Families must make the down payment on their new homes by providing 500 volunteer hours (“Sweat Equity”) building their own or other Habitat homes, or otherwise helping Habitat for Humanity towards its goals. We offer a hand up, not a hand-out.
Many low-income families have never known the kind of stable housing Habitat strives to provide. These families typically reside in the lowest cost rental housing available and are at the whim of landlords as housing is sold, renovated and rented at unaffordable rates, or torn down. Families are forced to move often, creating upheaval for the children at school. Through the purchase of a Habitat home families can build a more stable life as responsible homeowners.
Studies in both Canada and the US have shown that children raised in a Habitat home do much better in school, have a much better graduation rate, and a much higher rate of participation in post-secondary education than do children of families left behind in sub-standard housing.
Learn more:
- Answers to common questions including “What can I do to help?“
- Latest volunteer or construction news
- Habitat Canada
- Habitat International
- Contact us
Habitat directors in the Sunshine Coast Village quonset - Sunday March 14, 2010. Missing: Barry Smith, Keith Paterson
Executive Committee
- Gwen Hawkins – Chair of the Board
- Ron Pepper – Executive Director
- Laima van Turnhout – Correspondence Secretary
- Position Open – Treasurer
Board of Directors
- Ken Crozier: Chair – ReStore
- Elaine Foulkes: Chair – Faith Relations
- Gloria Hoeght: Chair – Family Selection
- Robert MacDonald: Chair – Public Relations
- Kenan MacKenzie: Chair – Sunshine Coast Village Development & Construction
- Deborah Pepper: Chair – Fundraising
- Pam Richmond: Chair – Family Mentoring
- Monika Schittek: Chair – Site Selection
- Barry Smith: Chair – Recycling