SHOP. DONATE. VOLUNTEER. Our Habitat ReStore is owned and operated by Habitat for Humanity St. Tammany West to serve our mission of building homes, communities and hope.
The Habitat ReStore concept started in 1991 as Habitat affiliates began to receive donations of building materials and household goods that donors thought could be used in Habitat homes. Though the generosity was greatly appreciated, it proved impractical to redesign blueprints to fit the dimension of specific doors, windows and cabinet sets that had been donated. Instead, Habitat affiliates began selling these donated items to the public and using the proceeds to cover costs of homebuilding. Currently, there are nearly 800 Habitat ReStores in the United States. The Mandeville ReStore officially opened April 25, 2009. The ReStore is a social enterprise which connects the social mission of our non-profit organization with the market-driven approach of a business.
Tell me a little bit about the local habitat chapter here in West St. Tammany. This is actually the 10th affiliate in the country and the first in Louisiana. And we've built over 290 homes now, most of those since Katrina. And so we'll be hitting our 300th home sometime next year. And so we'really excited at the growth that we've had in the past, especially 10 to 15 years. Wow, that's incredible. So what exactly is your mission? Our mission is really simple, is to create a world where everyone has a decent place to live. And it sounds simple, but obviously it's not easy. The entire world has a housing crisis. Our local community has a housing crisis. Most people don't realize the North Shore has a housing crisis. We have homeless people here. We have people living in substandard housing. We have people who are doubled up. We have so many people who are rent burdened. They're paying way more than they can afford on their homes or their rentals. And so many people have to go and live somewhere farther away and then drive into the jobs that are here. So there's just a real need here that we're trying to meet. Absolutely. So tell me a little bit about that program. We bring people into the program based on their need for housing, which is pretty easy. Their ability to pay because they do purchase the home and pay for it with a 30-year mortgage. We have to have a group of partners to make it happen. We have to have the home buyers and staff and volunteers and donors. And so without any of those pieces, it just doesn't work. And you heavily rely on the community as well to volunteer, right? We depend on our partnerships. We have a dedication this afternoon, as a matter of fact, for a home that is recently finished. And I asked our volunteer coordinator for some information about who had worked on the homes. I could recognize them. And there were probably 12 to 15 groups of either companies or civic organizations that have worked on it, in addition to just individuals and the home buyers themselves. So the volunteers help defray some of the costs of the building. They help us spread the word. Sometimes they then also make a donation. So it helps build on the program. So Anna, I understand that you're fairly new with Kent. What have you learned about Kent's interest in working with the community? Working our community is a very important part of who we are, and it has been from our start for 25 years now. We serve our local communities by buildings that serve the community. But we also place an emphasis on doing community service. And we encourage our employees to engage in community service. I know We had a great time, and it was a great way to give back to the community and kind of hear the story of the family that we're serving. Brandi's a wonderful lady. She's one of those folks that she has a place that is maybe affordable, but it's in poor condition and it's not a great place to raise a child. So I've gotten to know hundreds of families over the years, and as they come in for various things, I always ask how the kids are doing. When so many kids are going to college and going to the military and doing things that they probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to do without the stability of home. That's one of our key words, the stability. No moving from place to place. Having a place to sit down and do your homework without interruption. Having a safe home without mold that's giving you asthma. All those sorts of things, it all plays a part. Kent has built a partnership with Habitat, which we enjoy thoroughly. What's the best way for people in our community to engage in volunteering? One thing that we put people, we save a lot of people in a car for an hour and drive them around and show them the work that we're doing. And often there are people working on site and we'll stop and visit with a home buyer and the other volunteers. And we talk about the things that we've talked about in more detail. You can help in so many ways, whether it's the obvious ways of building on the site or donating money, but also our restore relies on volunteers and the funds from the restore help build houses. We have people doing event planning. I mean, you name it, there's probably something we can find for you to do that would help us further that mission. Sounds Absolutely. We look forward to continuing to grow, to build more homes and we hope to get into some home repair as well because that is something that's just not available at all and there's great need for that.