Habitat for Humanity home repair in Carpinteria

Tomorrow marks Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County's first home repair in Carpinteria. Habitat has wanted to work in Carpinteria for some time now and we're thrilled to be able to debut the new "A Brush With Kindness" home repair program in this wonderful community. Over the next two consecutive Saturdays, Habitat volunteers we will be repairing the driveway, plastering and painting the house exterior, fixing eaves, and re-landscaping a house in need of maintenance.

Like our home building program, "A Brush with Kindness" relies on individual and groups of volunteers to help with the home repairs. For this particular project we have volunteer groups coming from Westmont College, Santa Barbara City College, UCSB, and Santa Barbara Firefighters.  Venoco is confirmed as a half house sponsor of the whole project and St. Joseph's Catholic Church is providing lunch for all volunteers.

A Brush with Kindness is about restoring homes and helping people through simple acts of kindness.  If you'd like to volunteer and help homeowners remain in their homes, please sign up online. This is a program that is not limited to just this one house. We will keep you informed on upcoming A Brush with Kindness projects. 

Related link: How to qualify for A Brush with Kindness

Students make a difference by volunteering with Habitat for Humanity

It's always inspiring to see students engaging themselves and their campuses to make a difference in the community. Today we heard of two such examples! 

First, Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County is lucky to have one of the state's finest institutions literally in our backyard. UCSB's faculty and students support Habitat in many ways, one of which is through the student run UCSB Habitat for Humanity campus chapter. 

Yesterday the UCSB Campus Chapter took a break from studying and held a fundraiser at the IV Drip Coffee Shop. Over a hundred students donated a portion of their coffee money to Habitat and learned about how they can volunteer and make a difference to end sub-standard housing in Santa Barbara. The campus chapter also volunteered a work day in our ReStore earlier this month!

And, later in the day we received information from Habitat for Humanity International on their upcoming Collegiate Challenge. During this year's spring break, thousands of students will volunteer their week off by helping Habitat improve communities across the country. This spring break more than 10,000 students from 600 spring break groups will travel to 185 locations and donate over $1.4 million to Habitat for Humanity. Now that's inspiring!

Read more: Making a difference through Collegiate Challenge

HFHI cr: Steffan Hacker

Before you remodel, consider what can be reused in the Habitat ReStore

Are you remodeling your home and looking for an environmentally friendly way to demolish and deconstruct? Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County does not provide deconstruction services ourselves but we partner with the Deconstruction & ReUse Network to assist with local deconstructions. 

Many items removed from a remodel demolition can be reused and we hope you'll take advantage of DRN's services. They provide the deconstruction work and give many reusable materials to the Habitat ReStore. Instead of filling up our local landfills the material is used in local Habitat homes or purchased at discounted rates by families that might not otherwise be able to afford them. 

Contractors saving reusable items.
cr: HFHI/Steffan Hacker

Reusable items include:

• Lumber
• Doors & Windows
• Roofing
• Cabinetry
• Countertops
• Plumbing Fixtures
• Fireplaces & Mantels
• And more...check the ReStore's website for all materials accepted.

So if you're thinking about remodeling your home or office, consider minimizing your environmental impact and contact the Deconstruction & ReUse Network. 

Why deconstruct to REUSE? The DRN reminds us: 

34 Billion tons of construction waste ends up in the landfill each year. Deconstructing to reuse one 2,500 sq. foot home can divert 25 tons of construction waste. 

You can be part of A Brush with Kindness

We've told you about Habitat for Humanity Santa Barbara's new program A Brush With Kindness a few times and are still in need of volunteers to help repair a home of a low-income homeowner in Carpinteria. A Brush With Kindness is a new program that allows Habitat to serve a greater number of people in Santa Barbara and is in line with our core values of homeownership and community revitalization. 

Habitat's first home repair will help Suzanna, a low-income homeowner in Carpinteria who cares for her disabled sister. After years of deferred maintenance, Suzanna's driveway is in need of complete repair. The driveway has become a hazard and hindrance to her sister who is wheelchair bound. Habitat is working with a local contractor to lay a new driveway, plaster holes in the exterior of the home, repair eaves, paint the full exterior, and landscape the yard. 

We have a great group of Westmont College students confirmed to help on 2/26 but still need volunteers to sign up for Saturday, February 26th and March 5th. Please sign-up to volunteer online or contact our volunteer coordinator Lydia.

A portion of the driveway that needs repair.

Support Funds for Affordable Housing

According to the Los Angeles Times, California's budget shortfall is estimated to be $28 billion. This deficit has prompted Governor Brown to propose drastic cuts, including the elimination of state Redevelopment Agencies (RDAs).  Like food and clothing, Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County believes that shelter is a basic human need that must be met. Our mission and highest priority is to meet the housing needs of low-income, working families in Santa Barbara County and the elimination of RDAs would affect our ability to do so.

Our local affordable housing projects have been possible due to RDA funds. RDAs are the single largest source of local funding for affordable housing in California. Please learn more and take action to keep local redevelopment funds in our community.

From Housing California's Budget Fact Sheet:

Next to food, adequate shelter is the most fundamental of
human needs. In California, however, rising rents and job
losses have made families the fastest growing segment of our
homeless population. As well, foreclosures are forcing more
families into the rental market, further reducing the available
supply of affordable rentals and driving rents even higher. 

These facts highlight the most valuable role of redevelopment
funds in our communities: The production of affordable places to
live. On its own, the private market does not build enough
apartments with rents Californians can afford. Public investment
is crucial to providing these choices in the market. 

Today, February 15th, the Senate Committee on Governance and Finance is meeting for a hearing on the proposed redevelopment elimination. We will be keeping a close eye on results from this meeting and would love to hear from you. What are your thoughts on Governor Brown's proposed budget cuts?

Update: If you believe Redevelopment Agencies need to remain, tell the legislature here.

Sending Habitat Love

Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County sends love to our Partner Families and the passionate, hard-working volunteers, donors, and corporate sponsors who make our mission possible. Happy Valentine's Day!

The Habitat ReStore welcomes Cate School Volunteers

On Wednesday Habitat for Humanity Santa Barbara welcomed an enthusiastic group of students from Cate School in Carpinteria. Along with two chaperones the students were given the task of completely moving the Habitat ReStore's tile section. If you shop in the ReStore regularly you'll know that this is no easy task - we have a lot of tile. 

The students took ownership of the entire section and after a few short hours our tile section had a complete makeover! We're thankful for their commitment to giving back to the community and their friendship. What a fun group of students to spend the morning with!

Their finished product!

We always need big groups of volunteers to help in the ReStore with larger projects like this. If you have a group and would like to volunteer together, please email or sign up here. 

Related Links:
Habitat for Humanity's Youth Programs
Habitat for Humanity's Teacher Fellows program

Volunteer Spotlight on Charley Cairns

Here at Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County we love to celebrate our volunteers. We couldn't do what we do without their commitment and we consider each and every volunteer to be a member of the Habitat family. Last month we had the chance to celebrate one of our most dedicated volunteers, Charley Cairns. 

Charley can be found every Friday in the ReStore stocking shelves, helping with new donations, and assisting customers. He also happens to be one of the friendliest people on the planet and always has a smile on his face. While we count on his assistance in the ReStore every week, we have also relied on his help elsewhere and he can be counted on to volunteer when we're struggling to get volunteer shifts covered. Charley was a crucial volunteer during our Tour of Green Homes fundraiser last fall and at the San Pascual build site. And he even volunteered to distribute fundraiser posters in all of Santa Barbara's coffee shops and rec centers. We couldn't have done it without him. We are so thankful for Charley's dedication to the ReStore and to Habitat for Humanity's mission of providing affordable housing in Santa Barbara. 

Charley receiving his volunteer certificate and name tag pin.

As a way to visually thank our volunteers we provide each person with a Habitat for Humanity name tag after completing 25 volunteer hours and a name tag pin for each additional 100 hours. Next time you're in the ReStore check out the volunteers' name tags; you'll be surprised how many have a few hundred volunteer hours to their names.

Thank you to Charley and all of our volunteers who make the ReStore a success. We couldn't do it without you!

Common Ground Santa Barbara

The Santa Barbara News-Press and Noozhawk both have articles in today's issue about a new countywide collaboration of local nonprofits, businesses, city-leaders, and faith organizations called Common Ground Santa Barbara. The purpose of Common Ground Santa Barbara is to compile a Vulnerability Index to asses the needs in our community and take steps to house the most vulnerable homeless men and women. 

It's not an easy task to compile this information and Common Ground Santa Barbara is calling on the entire community to help by volunteering to be on a survey team. 500 volunteers are needed to participate in the registry week, Feb 28-March 4th. 

Photos: Kim MacDonald/Habitat for Humanity International

 

"A Brush With Kindness" set to begin this month!

This month Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County will complete our first "A Brush with Kindness" home repair.  ABWK - as we like to call it - is a short term-home repair program for low-income and elderly homeowners who are having trouble maintaining their homes. Focusing on exterior home repair services such as painting, landscaping, driveway repaving, and fence repair, the goal of this program is to serve more people in our community and increase the viability of entire neighborhoods. 

We announced ABWK last fall and are proud to share that we now have our first ABWK home selected and the date set. Stay tuned as we share more about the program over the course of the month. This is an exciting time for Habitat for Humanity Santa Barbara as we'll be able to make an even larger impact in the community! 

And be sure to view the excellent above video courtesy of Habitat for Humanity International. It gives a wonderful overview of the program and how it will change the lives of an even greater number of people in our community!