Above Average Housing

I first began to think about housing and housing/neighborhood development during college.  I spent two spring breaks on Habitat for Humanity service trips to Southern towns.  As these types of trips are meant to do, each was eye opening.  It isn't just verbiage when I say that they also changed my life.

I met people I admired.  They were inspiring and dedicated and passionate.  All qualities I hoped to be someday.  They shaped my ambiguous dreams into a plan...a blueprint, you might say, for the next two years of my life.

After typing that, now two years seems like such a short time frame.  I blink these days and two years have gone by.  But in my twenties, I faced plentiful and steep learning curves.  It was a time where I was so mailable that each daily experience left a large imprint on who I am.  Time moved slowly.  Sometimes painfully so.

After college I moved to Americus, GA to be an extended volunteer with Habitat for Humanity International.  I would spend most of my time in Georgia, with a three month stop over in West Virginia to host Spring Break trips at an affiliate there.  It should be noted that I never spent much time on a work site.  I was the organizer, the spokesperson, the cheerleader, the spiritual voice, and the logistics officer.  Back in Georgia I worked in Media Relations, writing and promoting the various nationwide build events.  I recited these facts and figures multiple times a day to reporters.  The repetition wore a grove in my soul.  Repetition, combined with my hands-on experiences and daily conversations with people who live in substandard housing around Americus, fueled a passion for housing that stays with me.

So, now I am looking for my own house.  Actually, it will be our third house (fourth, if you count a student apartment) as a couple.  The one we currently live in is the only one we've owned; (my husband is quick to point out we don't *actually* own this one either, the bank does...pish, posh I say.) our first home was a parsonage owned by the congregation.

When we moved into our current home we jokingly said it reminded us of a Habitat home.  Translation, it is a basic, usable home, without any of the bells and whistles of so many new builds today.  The rooms are adequate, but small.  It is enough.

But of course, we want more.

 

Now 14 years after my work at HFHI, I am faced with the mix of suburban peer pressure, basic common sense for our family, my desire not to disappoint my former colleagues and my own wish to be true to myself.  On my list of what I want in my next house, along side the many "wishes," I list "doesn't make me feel like a hypocrite."

I would much rather reuse an old house, than buy one of the brand new vinyl beige Mc-homes that are popping up around us.  I would rather live in an established neighborhood than on land I remember as a corn field just a year ago.  I don't want to buy more than we need.  I want to fight the urge to have shiny counter tops and appliances that are exactly like everyone else.

But I also want spaces free of kids toys, a bedroom for my daughter, a public school system that doesn't makes me consider private school, and mature trees.  I'd be lying if I didn't also list: a larger bathroom, a kitchen island, storage closets, lots of windows and wood floors.

As I write on Sunday afternoon, my husband is loading the kids in to the car to go look at a brand spanking new home.

I'll report back on whether it has everything on my list.

Republic of Congo

 Guatamala

Papua New Guinea
Photos are from the HFHI website and one from Coldwell Banker