Habitat World Online


From left, Remarcus, Oshae, Quienna, Keon and Ariella Spinks look forward to moving into their Habitat house after the JCWP 2005 in Benton Harbor.

(Rebuilding Community continued)

The importance of that kind of rebuilding is not lost on Quienna Spinks.

Having grown up in Benton Harbor, where some 45 percent of households earn less than $15,000 and 40 percent live below the poverty line, Spinks relocated to Columbus, Ohio, in 1998. Four years later, however, she was abruptly "called" back home.

"My return to Benton Harbor wasn't easy for me," Spinks said, "but I was obedient to God and I came back." After her return, however, life was not entirely pleasant. Because she was unable to afford other housing, she and her four children were forced to live in places that weren't the safest for any of them, unpredictable, noisy--at times violent.

In June, she and her husband, Oshae Spinks, and their family will move into their new Habitat house. But Spinks looks beyond the mere physical features of a house to find in decent housing an opportunity to reshape one's mindset.

"When you live in a poverty-stricken area, you get the mentality that you can't do any better," she said. "A house alone will not change that if you still carry a ghetto mentality. But when you live in a decent place that you can afford, and you know your children are safe and there's no garbage on the street and that kind of thing ... it changes your view."

That's a picture much different from the one Spinks paints of public housing projects, which she characterizes as "entrapment." "The rent may be cheap, but there's a [human] cost much higher than any rent payment," she said.

Janice Grant doesn't live in public housing, but she does live in a neighborhood where three fires have gutted homes on her block and where the overall neighborhood "has really gone down in the last seven years." That will all soon change.

A Detroit native, Grant has experienced the transformations her city has undergone in recent decades, but Detroit is home. It's where she is rooted with family and friends, with church and work and, in June, with her new Habitat house.

	'We can fix the problem here. ...We just need to focus more attention on it.' --Mike Green, Harbor HFH executive director

"Not too many people get the opportunity to own their own home," she said, "so this is all really a blessing. I'm ready to get things under way."

Not unlike Spinks and Grant, affiliate executive directors Rob Dewaelsche in Detroit and Mike Green in Benton Harbor see Habitat as much more than a house builder. They and their affiliates' staff and volunteers see themselves as community builders.

Dewaelsche and his team at Detroit HFH pursue a holistic approach to building, meeting the immediate goal of building Habitat houses, but also seeking other opportunities to improve quality of life for local families.

"Community organizations are the risk takers, the ones that go in first," said Dewaelsche. "We'll risk some capital in order to stabilize the neighborhood ... and we'll also build what turns out to be some of the first new housing built in these neighborhoods in two generations."

Dewaelsche attributes his affiliate's success in part to this holistic approach, to the fact that his affiliate targets a neighborhood, then seeks to rebuild it. "We're well respected as an organization that really invests in people. I think the whole idea of working in targeted neighborhoods from a holistic standpoint is one that people can appreciate ... that sponsors can appreciate, because they, too, want to see an approach that is more than houses, that addresses some of the social needs."

Detroit HFH's board chair John Mogk said, "Our central role, of course, is to build new affordable housing....But you can't provide quality of life without other components of a neighborhood being there. The problem is that no one else is supplying them, so [Habitat] rises to the top quickly."

The Detroit affiliate works with other local entities, including a city government that owns 40,000 vacant lots throughout Detroit, to promote affordable housing and community development. Another vital partner is a local nonprofit organization called Core City Neighborhoods, with which Detroit HFH has embarked on a substantial community development project called the Tri-Centennial Village, whereby a number of partners will revitalize the depressed community through new housing, job training programs, health clinics, after-school opportunities and, ultimately, commercial development.

Community development has anchored on the shores of Lake Michigan as well in Benton Harbor.

At the Benton Harbor JCWP site, the Habitat houses will be the first new housing built there in 33 years. When Green secured Habitat's first housing permit in 1996, it was the first new-housing permit requested in a quarter century.

In a city where less than 40 percent of the houses are owned--contrasted with 74 percent for Michigan and 66 percent for the United States--and dozens lack complete plumbing and kitchen facilities, the JCWP will make a stark difference, said Green.

"This event, the scope of it, will change this community forever," Green said. "People will come to the 'table' as a result of it and will stay at the 'table' long after it's over.

"We can fix the problem here....We just need to focus more attention on it."

In June, such a focus will intensify Habitat activity in both cities and throughout the state, borne by committed volunteers and future homeowners seeking to make a difference--and rebuild their communities. Not the least of those will be Janice Grant and Quienna Spinks, home where they belong.


Some of the JCWP 2005 houses will be built as in-fill in existing neighborhoods.