HFH Project - mini rant

[Sparky617]

On Saturday I helped on a Habitat for Humanity project in Apex, NC that our church is sponsoring with other Lutheran Churches in the area. We made a lot of progress laying down the second floor Advantech floor, others were working on wall panels that will be hoisted up and set up in the next week.

They really waste a lot of time on these projects. I gave up a Saturday to build a house, not stand around in 40F waiting to start. I arrived around 8am and we didn't have the safety briefing, opening prayer, and Wake County HFH sales pitch until 8:45. If you're not going to start until 8:45 don't ask me to show up at 8. I could have taken the dog for a longer walk instead of rushing out of the house. Then at 11am they had the dedication on another house, so we had to stop construction as to not interrupt the ceremony. Then there was lunch and we couldn't start work again until everyone was done eating and socializing. Also, after lunch you tend to lose about 30% of your volunteers. So they got a solid 1.5-2 hours of work out of some of the volunteers.

I've led a lot of volunteer efforts over the years. I've learned that you don't waste your volunteer's time. If you do, they don't come back. When I led volunteer construction projects I tried to have everything we were going to need to start that day on site. That's not to say we haven't had to make runs to Lowe's 3 miles away to get more supplies, but I never have people waiting around while I go shopping for supplies. Have a plan, and get the people working right away. Since many volunteers will leave after lunch, start early. On lunch, if you don't feed them, you will lose ALL of your volunteers at lunch.

All in all, frustrations aside, I'm glad I helped and I'm sure we made more progress with my help than without. We laid down the entire second floor decking having to work through some issues along the way. They changed the spacing of the I-joists on the back of the house, 16" OC under the bathroom and 24" OC under the one bedroom. Then at the center beam they changed directions from side to side to front to back. With the spacing change we should have started with a half sheet on the first row so when we hit the spacing change the edge of the Advantech would line up at the place where the two spacings agreed. Not realizing this we had to change it up mid-stream so as to not have more than two butt joints line up at that place. They saved 2 I-joists but took more time in the process.

The time wasting factor won't encourage me to give up every Saturday to work on the project as much as I appreciate HFH and enjoy working with other people on these kind of projects.

 

[oldognewtrick]

You have to remember that 90% of the folks building these projects have never been on a job site before. I've been on several HFH build sites around Nashville and its basically the same here. But, its a rewarding experience.

 

[Sparky617]

I've done HFH in past, but more recently have done projects with Appalachian Service Project and local disaster relief. After Katrina I went to Mississippi. My rant/frustration is having everyone stand around for an hour waiting to start. Had I known that was going to be the case I would have gone for a longer walk with the dog. I come to work, not stand around.

 

[oldognewtrick]

I totally understand what you're saying, I hate waiting on people or having them wait on me.

 

[Sparky617]

I'm ex-USAF I have a strong aversion to hurry up and wait.

 

[havasu]

I thank you for volunteering to HFH. I donate goods and cash to them and i believe it is a worthy cause.

 

[Sparky617]

I was a board member with Loudoun County, VA HFH as we were setting up the chapter. We moved right after we acquired the first building lot so I never got to help build with them. Wake HFH is the second largest HFH chapter in the country having built over 850 homes in Wake and Johnson Counties NC. It is a very worthy organization and I support their mission.

 

[bud16415]

The large company I worked for came up with the idea to unite all the new young employees that were in numbers of management training programs, they would buy a run down house in a poor neighborhood and find a needy family and fix it up and give it to them. Thus bonding all these kids together and making them feel a part of the community etc. When I first heard the plan I thought about offering my time and then found out the one training program that was excluded was the apprentice program that I went thru and they were likely the only ones that had half an idea how to build something. So I declined. They paid way too much for a house that needed way too much work something like 80k. They swarmed in with truck loads of paint and brushes, rollers and white paper coveralls and ate truck loads of pizzas did little work but made a big mess only to find out the roof leaked the plumbing was bad, it had no insulation, had bugs and critters bad windows furnace was shot, etc. They met there for at least 6 months and ate pizza and interest started going away. The company made a big deal when it started in the media and questions were getting asked when would it be done. Someone then suggested to get the apprentices involved and to get them to work on it they found out they had to pay them overtime. So they did that. They made some headway but were wearing out so they then brought in plant maintenance folks paying them even more and they confirmed what the apprentices were saying the program kids made it worse not better and they had to redo everything. They worked on it a while getting paid and were falling behind so the company hired a local contractor to come in and finish it. It was a beautiful job in the end and cost about 350k for a house in a bad neighborhood that was worth maybe 150k. They gave it to a family and within a couple years to drive by it. It looks about like it did when they bought it again.



HFH I think does a much better job and even gets the eventual owner involved in the project, but still with working with a lot of people unskilled but wanting to feel they are helping can be a daunting task for someone who knows what needs to be done.



We had the TV show Extreme Makeover do a home in Erie and a couple years later it was up for tax sale. Luckily a local businessman stepped in and paid the taxes for the owners. Quite a few of those show houses ended up being lost for taxes or sold so the owners could downsize as they were too much.

Good intentions have a way of backfiring many times

 

[Sparky617]

The Extreme Makeover show often went so far over the top that the owners couldn't afford to maintain the house. Plus there is a huge tax liability for the value of all the stuff they gave the owners. It was definitely one of those be careful what you wish for. At least if I win the HGTV Dream Home, Smart Home, or Urban Oasis Home I can sell it and pocket the cash. That's what most winners do. I think another viable option from some of them is to go Air BnB or VRBO with them since the Dream Homes tend to be in tourist areas.

I've done a lot of volunteer work with Appalachian Service Project a charity that repairs and upgrades homes in the Appalachia sections of KY, VA, WV, and TN. Their motto is warmer, safer, drier. Oftentimes you're repairing a 40 year old trailer for an elderly or disabled homeowner. I've been fortunate to do a lot of work on homes on foundations instead of trailers. With the trailers I often get the idea we're applying a band-aid to keep the house habitable for another 5 years. With the homes we often make them serviceable for another 20 or 30 years or much longer with the usual maintenance. It is hard to extend the life of a mobile home much beyond 50 years with out a lot of extensive modifications, like building a truss roof over the entire structure, residing and replacing all the doors and windows. At that point, it is usually cheaper and faster to start over.

 

[BuzzLOL]

Used to have HFH in the commercial building behind my garage. They caused me a lot of problems and time in jail. They wanted the lot my house and garage sit on to expand their tiny parking lot next door to me. I offered to sell my property to them, but they wanted me to donate my home of 40 years to them. They're INSANE! Used to getting everything donated to them. They work with the Inspection Dept. a lot and sic'd them on me to drive me out. I'm the old guy in the way of progress. HFH is a religious organization and the Housing Judge used to be lawyer for the Council of Churches and went along with their evil. Fortunately, someone burned them out of that building and they're out of my neighborhood now. But the city harassment still continues somewhat, slowed by the plandemic.
I occasionally talked to some of the potential new home owners out in the HFH parking lot waiting to get qualified for a new home. Most of them told me they had quit their jobs to qualify for a HFH house. That seemed stupid. Anyone who owns a home knows you need your JOB! As Sparky mentioned above, these are people who likely wouldn't be able to keep the home up or taxes paid! The HFH program seems BACKWARDS!

 

[Sparky617]

I didn't say that about HFH, that was the winners of the Extreme Home Makeovers. Most HFH homeowners are able to keep their homes. They keep their housing costs to no more than 30% of their income and the mortgages are interest free.

It is a solid program. I was just annoyed that they kept me waiting around when I came to work. I had other things I could have been doing instead of standing around.