About us

Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian movement with the goal of eliminating substandard housing and homelessness by, as a matter of conscience, building adequate and basic housing. HFHI’s new strategic plan challenges the organization to dramatically increase its impact by expanding work in housing finance, advocacy, and partnerships.

HFHI has supported the market research, product development, product piloting and provision of complementary construction and program services by partnering with more than fifteen microfinance institutions (MFIs) around the world.

HFHI’s recent accomplishments and activities promoting housing microfinance include:

• Serving as coordinating organization and secretariat for the CGAP Working Group on Housing Finance for the Poor.
• Developed a version of Microsave tools specifically adapted for development of housing microfinance products.
• Funded and collaborated with Acción International’s research into the prospects for greater scale of housing products within their Latin American network partners (results shared at the 2006 SEEP Network Annual General Meeting).
• Served as a consultant to the World Bank for a report on housing microfinance for a new book they will be publishing titled Housing Finance in Emerging Economies.
• Produced a Spanish language version of the Franck Daphnis and Bruce Ferguson book Housing Finance: A Guide to Practice to provide more widespread availability of that important tool to MFIs in Spanish speaking countries.
• Hired Chuck Waterfield to teach a modified version of his Microfin and FRAME courses to managers of housing finance programs.