Mission Vision

“A world where everyone has a decent place to live.”

Mission Statement

 Seeking to put God’s love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope. 

Mission Principles

1. Demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ.

We undertake our work to demonstrate the love and teachings of Jesus, acting in all ways in accord with the belief that God’s love and grace abound for all, and that we must be “hands and feet” of that love and grace in our world. We believe that, through faith, the miniscule can be multiplied to accomplish the magnificent, and that, in faith, respectful relationships can grow among all people.

2. Focus on shelter.

We have chosen, as our means of manifesting God’s love, to create opportunities for all people to live in decent, du­rable shelter. We put faith into action by helping to build, renovate or preserve homes, and by partnering with others to accelerate and broaden access to affordable housing as a foundation for breaking the cycle of poverty.

3. Advocate for affordable housing.

In response to the prophet Micah’s call to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God, we promote decent, affordable housing for all, and we support the global community’s commitment to housing as a basic human right. We will advocate for just and fair housing policy to eliminate the constraints that contribute to poverty housing. And, in all of our work, we will seek to put shelter on hearts and minds in such powerful ways that poverty housing becomes socially, politically and religiously unacceptable.

4. Promote dignity and hope.

We believe that no one lives in dignity until everyone can live in dignity. We believe that every person has something to contribute and something to gain from creating communities in which all people have decent, affordable places to live. We believe that dignity and hope are best achieved through equitable, accountable partnerships.

5. Support sustainable and transformational development.

We view our work as successful when it transforms lives and promotes positive and lasting social, economic and spiritual change within a community; when it is based on mutual trust and fully shared accomplishment; and when it demonstrates responsible stewardship of all resources entrusted to us

Background

Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit, nongovernmental, ecumenical Christian housing organization currently working in over 90 countries. It seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness by making safe shelter a matter of conscience and action. To accomplish this vision, Habitat invites people of all backgrounds, races and religions to build houses together in partnership with families in need.

The United Nations’ (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and 12 additional UN texts explicitly recognize the right to adequate housing as an integral part of the right to an adequate standard of living. The declaration states; “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing…”

Habitat’s work has the greatest affinity to the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number 7: “Ensure environmental sustainability”, and addresses the goal’s three sub-targets; to integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs, including reversing the loss of environmental resources; to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water; and to achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

Over three decades, Habitat has demonstrated that building homes also builds a foundation for families to break the cycle of poverty and transform their lives. It is the gateway to improved family health, better schooling, and enhanced household economic well being. It positively impacts the UN MDGs that seek to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, promote gender equality, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and combat diseases.

To date, Habitat has built or repaired over 400,000 houses around the world, providing more than two million people in 3,000 communities with safe, decent, affordable shelter.