WITH DICK WAGNER ***image1*** SFR: You're a part-time Web designer in your other life, but for 2½ years, you've given a heck of a lot of time to Habitat for Humanity. How did you get involved with this organization?
DW:
I was interested in Habitat because I really think highly of their mission and what they're trying to accomplish-you know, providing affordable housing for those that wouldn't otherwise be able to ever dream of owning their own home. It's a different program than some government-subsidized housing where people are just renting-this is a program where people actually end up buying and owning a house. It makes such a huge difference in their lives forever, and the lives of the children in that household, too.
So you and Tim Minton have been in charge of 'blitz building' a house in three weeks. How is it possible to accomplish such a feat?
It's possible because we've had a lot of volunteers and that's the only reason we've been able to do it. We've had about 250 volunteers on the job-each day we typically have 15 to 18, maybe as many as 20 volunteers out here. We're all volunteers, too, even those of us running the job.
What are you trying to accomplish by building the house so quickly?
What we're hoping to accomplish is to get a number of folks willing to come back and volunteer on a more regular basis throughout the year, because we build 51 weeks out of the year. And it's usually just a handful of us that are building, so it's tough to build enough-to accomplish our goal of building seven houses this year-without the added help of some additional volunteers. I think Blitz is viable because it brings the attention of the community to our mission and the need for affordable housing
Usually it takes Habitat about four months to build a house, but this one took less than a month. Do houses built this quickly hold up as well?
This is our second blitz house. We did one last year-it's right across the street. We made a commitment before we even went into this last year that we would not compromise the quality at all, not at all. I know for a fact, having been involved in both of them, that these houses are built just as well as our other houses. There is absolutely no difference. The difference has been we've had a lot of volunteers and we've been able to do it more quickly.
How long does it take a commercial contractor to build a house?
If it's one of these homebuilders out here, where they're really knocking them out and they've got big crews, they probably knock them out in two months, maybe it takes them half of what it takes us, I really don't know. I don't really pay that much attention to what they're doing.
It seems like they're popping up everywhere.
This whole part of Jaguar Road was just opened about 18 months ago. So all of this construction, all the way down the road, has happened in the last 18 months.
How do you keep costs down to make these homes affordable?
Well, it's volunteer labor. That's number one. We do have some very generous partners that support us with certain items that go into the house, but the number-one cost-saving issue is definitely the volunteer labor. When the project is done, the family essentially buys the house-they take out a mortgage. Habitat provides that mortgage for them. The mortgage is typically a 20-year mortgage with no interest, and so that really reduces the monthly payment. The family is typically able to buy the house at something less than what the true value is, because we're able to sell it for a little bit less because we've used volunteer labor. So they're buying the house at a little bit less than market value and they're able to do it without paying interest.
With housing costs out the roof, does Santa Fe ever become a lost cause in terms of affordable housing?
I don't think it ever does. I think you figure out ways to make it affordable, no matter what is going on in the rest of the market. I think that's one of the challenges and one of the things that Habitat proves to be very good at, and that is making it affordable even in an expensive market like Santa Fe. For example, we're building two homes in Aldea, a fairly upscale community, and they fit right in, they look nice. They're not fancy, they're not expensive, but they are decent housing and even in those neighborhoods the houses fit right in. One of our biggest challenges up until recently has been land costs-finding land we can afford to buy and turn it into affordable housing. We seem to be in much better shape than we were a couple of years ago. So this is amazing for us-we've got a backlog of at least 13 lots, which has been unheard of in our recent history.
Does anything ever go wrong during the building process?
I tell people in our morning briefing-we're just volunteers, too, and it's very likely that sometime during the day, we ask you to do something and then come back 20 minutes later and say, 'Oh no, I changed my mind, I want you to do something else.' We're not professionals in that sense.
All of this building must be quite exhausting.
Yeah, sometimes you get really tired. You go home tired, but you go home very pleased, because you know you've accomplished something. So it's a very self-satisfying kind of exhaustion.
To volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, visit the Web site at www.sfhfh.org, or call 986-5880.
