Articles

Interfaith Group Builds Houses for Families, Bridges for Community

Faith And The City Newsletter
Volume 4 Issue 1
Winter/Spring 2004

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For the second consecutive year, an interfaith collaboration of congregations is working in partnership with Atlanta Habitat for Humanity to build an affordable home for a low-income working family. In doing so, the congregations are building bridges across faith traditions to create friendships, increase understanding, and nurture a sense of community.

This year, volunteers from nine Muslim, Jewish, and Christian congregations teamed up to build a house on Montgomery Street in southeast Atlanta. The work began on a chilly morning in January at the Atlanta Habitat warehouse a few blocks away on Woodward Avenue.

More than 50 volunteers met just after 8 a.m. for a brief interfaith worship service before dividing into two groups. One team left to prepare the building site where professionals had already laid a concrete-block foundation. The other team remained at the warehouse to nail together wood-stud walls that then were hauled to the site. Around noon, the teams met at the site and offered prayer before sharing a lunch of sandwiches, chips, soda, and coffee.

After breaking bread together, the volunteers -- ranging from a high school student to a retiree and representing an array of backgrounds and professions -- returned eagerly to the task at hand. By the end of the workday, they had raised and secured the interior and exterior stud walls for the four-bedroom home.

In the weeks that followed, many of the same volunteers along with others from the participating congregations would return to complete one step after another in the construction process -- building an affordable home for a needy family and another interfaith bridge for the Atlanta metro community.

Editor's Note: Although the interfaith Atlanta Habitat for Humanity initiative is not a program of Faith And The City, it was conceived and is coordinated by Jan Swanson of that organization's CommUnity Institute. For more information, contact Jan at 404-523-5554 or at jswanson@faithandthecity.org.

Comments from Volunteers

"I enjoy meeting people from other religions. You lose the distances that sometimes separate us in life because of differences such as religion, culture, or educational background."
Don Berman, Tax Attorney
Member of The Temple

"Once we are all together, it's not about what we religion believe in. It's not about converting each other. It's about how we can come together as one to achieve this dream for a needy family."
Jacquie Jones, Design Consultant
Member of Buckhead Community Fellowship

"It was nice to be able to stop work for a few moments and share stories about our respective faith traditions. I feel more connected with the larger community."
Rev. James Kee-Rees, Assistant Rector
Church of the Epiphany

"For me, helping to build a Habitat house is a way to serve to others. It is an act of charity and charity is one of the five pillars of Islam."
Tariq Abdul-Malik
Recent Morehouse College Graduate
Affiliated with Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam

More About Atlanta Habitat for Humanity
(Correction: The above article implies that one of the participating congregations, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, is Muslim, Jewish, or Christian. This designation is not accurate according to Rev. Dr. Paula R. Gable of UUCA, who wrote: ÒWe're actually an interfaith congregation of sorts, although our actual denomination is UU and doesn't really fit into any of the traditional categories.Ó For more information, visit: www.uuca.org.)

Since 1983, Atlanta Habitat for Humanity has built more than 740 affordable homes for purchase by low-income working families, housing over 3,000 individual family members. The goal for this year is 50 homes. Priced under $100,000 -- with monthly mortgage payments of less than $500 -- Habitat homes help to alleviate the critical shortage of affordable housing in the metro area.

Habitat homebuyers help to build their own homes and then assist with construction of Habitat homes for other families. They make payments on interest-free loans and receive homeowner instruction on issues such as security, maintenance, budgeting, neighborhood involvement, and public education.

One of 1,700 local affiliates of Habitat for Humanity International, Atlanta Habitat is a non-profit, ecumenical housing organization that works in partnership with sponsors and communities. More than 15,000 volunteers contribute their time and talent each year. Atlanta Habitat spends approximately 90 cents of every dollar on housing construction and homeowner programs and services.

For more information, contact:

Atlanta Habitat for Humanity
519 Memorial Drive, SE
Atlanta, GA 30312
Phone: 404-223-5180
Fax: 404-223-5103
http://www.atlanta-habitat.org


Selected Articles from FATC Newsletter on Homelessness
Congregations Can Help End Homelessness
Special Report: A Day in the Life of a Homeless Person
Blueprint to End Homelessness: Seven-Point Plan Recommendations
Interfaith Group Build Houses for Families, Bridges for Community
Shelter A Family: Lighting the Path from Homelessness to Self-Sufficiency
Atlanta Community Court: Alternatives to Jailing the Homeless
Who are the Homeless? Highlights of the Tri-Jurisdictional Survey
Download pdf of Faith And The City Newsletter on Homelessness