USA Charity homes built by Hollywood start to crumble

Someone forgot to tell the residents they need to maintain their homes.

Fair use
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5439388.ece

Charity homes built by Hollywood start to crumble
John Harlow in Los Angeles
From The Sunday Times January 4, 2009

RESIDENTS of a model housing estate bankrolled by Hollywood celebrities and hand-built by Jimmy Carter, the former US president, are complaining that it is falling apart.

Fairway Oaks was built on northern Florida wasteland by 10,000 volunteers, including Carter, in a record 17-day “blitz” organised by the charity Habitat for Humanity.

Eight years later it is better known for cockroaches, mildew and mysterious skin rashes.

A forthcoming legal battle over Fairway Oaks threatens the reputation of a charity envied for the calibre of its celebrity supporters, who range from Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt to Colin Firth, Christian Bale and Helena Bonham Carter.

The case could challenge the bedrock philosophy behind Habitat for Humanity, claiming that using volunteers, rather than professional builders, is causing as many problems as it solves.

April Charney, a lawyer representing many of the 85 homeowners in Fairway Oaks, said she had no problems taking on Habitat for Humanity, despite its status as a “darling of liberal social activists”. She said the charity should have told people that part of the estate had been built on a rubbish dump.

One man pulled up his floorboards to find rubbish 5ft deep under his kitchen. Other complaints include cracking walls and rotting door frames that let in rats and ants. Many residents have complained of mildew and mysterious skin rashes.

One resident said her children were suffering from skin complaints. “The intentions are good, but when the politicians and big-shot stars have left we’re stuck with the consequences. This house looks pretty but inside it either stinks or sweats,” she said.

Judy Hall, the charity’s local development director, said recently that it had been dealing with about 30 complaints. She added that skilled work was carried out by professionals.

Some residents dismiss their neighbours’ worries. Diennal Fields, 51, said people did not know how to look after their homes: “It’s simple stuff: if there is mildew, don’t get a lawyer, get a bottle of bleach.”

wtf? did these ppl think that these 10,000 volunteers would continue to come in and maintain the houses for them? NO! when you OWN your house, you do all the maintenance and upkeep yourself, or you hire someone to do it for you. either way, it's your responsibility and you pay for it yourself in one way or another.

Maybe they should live in the house that I lived with my dd in when she was 16 months old. the back wall of the kitchen was falling out, and my cats kept climbing thru the hole in the floor in the bathroom.

Or maybe, they should live in the house that my friend Natalie has lived in for the past 10 years. I'm scared to go in the bathroom because the floor threatens to give way. The pipes have busted in the walls, the sink in the kitchen is rusted out, there's a big gaping hole in the ceiling in the back bedroom, and the landlord won't fix a damn thing. She's moving finally.

I can't speak directly to what the specific building codes are for that county, however .......

When my husband was the chief plumbing / mechanic building inspector in the large CA city where we lived, it was usual for an organization doing one of these 'events', be it houses or churches, to pay to have an on-site inspector, round the clock, so that every aspect of the structure met code.

Florida may be different.

That said, I think that what was said by one of the residents of Fairway Oaks, " Diennal Fields, 51, said people did not know how to look after their homes: “It’s simple stuff: if there is mildew, don’t get a lawyer, get a bottle of bleach.” ", does speak to a common problem in many low income housing developments.

Too many people simply either lack the most basic skills in maintaining a home, or are so hopelessly lazy due to generations of being on some form of welfare, that they refuse to take care of their surrounds because they expect someone else to do everything for them.

Yes, in some cases substandard materials and or substandard building techniques cause problems. But that can happen in any development when contractors care more about profit than they do about workmanship.

But after seeing so many examples of low income housing projects fail because of neglect and abuse by the residents, I'm not surprised to see this happening.

Years ago I spoke up for the homeowners of a 'struggling' neighborhood. It had once been a stable lower middle class / working class community, but between failed governmental policies to address social problems (gangs , drug, etc.) it had almost been lost. However the efforts of some of the long term residents and a small but very active group of newer residents, they had begun to see positive change by becoming active in cleaning up their area through neighborhood watch and working with local churches and other organizations to help clean up problem properties. In some cases it was as simple as helping elderly homeowners by painting and repairing their homes, cleaning up yards and making the area less attractive to gangs and the like.

So what did the city want to do?

Build a couple hundred, ultra and very low income houses in their community. How did the community react? They were upset, to say the least, that they hard work was going to be undermined by the powers that be, spending tax money to create 'instant ghettos' in their struggling neighborhood.

Most of the homes would have been little more than mini rat-traps, poorly designed and build with the bare minimum of materials.

When I pointed out that the proposed structures neither architecturally fit into the community and that since they were being built to standards lower than manufactured housing; they'd soon become problems that the occupants would lack either the skills or the money, to repair.

And that's often the problem.

Groups such as Habitat do some really wonderful work. But the best of it is when it's done as 'in fill' in neighborhoods; not when it's done as sprawling low income communities.

Anyway .... That's my rant

Low income doesn't equate to living poorly or being high crime; but until the social 'do-gooders' realize that simply providing low income housing does not help build strong, healthy and sustainable communities; all their energy will be in vain.

CelticRose,

I very much enjoyed reading your rant! Very nicely said!

Yes, indeed, Celtic Rose! You said a mouthful.

Have seen neighborhood after neighborhood destroyed by the entitlement, trash-whatever-was-given-to-them-for-free, mentality.

One of my fathers friends was hired as a foreman for Habitat. He spent an entire week doing nothing but telling people to stop you will get your time in. I was told that 20 people were hanging up a single sheet of drywall. And it was just worse from there.

I worked at MaBell in Louisville and we pre-wired many Habitat homes. They were nice when completed. It only took about 6 months for most of the interiors of these places to be ruined. Holes in walls...torn up carpet etc. These people dont deserve a dime of tax money anymore. As for as im concerned...they can get offf their worthless asses and clean up their own dam messes. I hate to say it....but i no longer care about these a-wipes.......spending tax money on the local zoo is money better spent.

It's the same all over the country. I watched a low income apartment building go up in Durham. I had a chance to walk through it before occupancy. It was better than where I was living with my 2 kids at the time and I thought how it would be to have something this nice. A great fenced play ground for the kids, all new appliances, no rust marks in the tubs, no pealing plaster, it was really nice. Because I worked I didn't meet the requirements - thank goodness.

I continued working my 2 & 3 jobs to support my family and buy us a nice home while the occupants of the new complex sat on their butts doing nothing except asking for more. I watched the complex for 15+ years until they had to tear it down because it wasn't fit even for the millions and millions of roaches that crawled the walls day and night.

All this brings to mind my pet peeve....about 'the something for nothing' crowd.
I stopped at the corner market last night on my way home from work to pick up an evening newspaper.
I waited in line behind two women...with some amusement ....at first....at the huge pile of snack foods on the checkout counter....chips, candy etc. It was at least $30 dollars worth. I really didn't think anything about it until the younger one pulled out an Oregon Trail card (Oregon food stamps) to pay....
The older one carried out the bag of snacks. The younger one carried out the malt liquor.
I am still too astonished to say much...except that our governor made a huge show a few months ago.. of buying food totalling the amount a food stamp recipient receives monthly ....saying long and loud how hard it is to get by on this small allowance.
The monthly allowance for a mother and child I know is about $340.
I took the mother and child I know shopping a few times...after a couple months I started teaching her to shop and cook so her food would last....she now has a job and is starting to support herself.

Have the rules changed for Habitat homes?

Used to be, every applicant had to work a certain number of hours on other homes before they got a chance to help with their own. They also had to be able to get a mortgage and be able to make the payments--the homes were never free. The new owners had to have income. They had to live in the house for several years before they could sell it (to prevent flipping). The whole point was to give the folks pride of ownership so they would take care of the property. They still do it that way here.

BigK, that is how it is here.

In fact, my friend is one of those home recipients about 10 years ago now. She had to put hours and hours and hours of "sweat equity" into hers and then the next home built. And she had to pay something for materials (a fraction of the overall total value, I seem to think it was a loan for $25K). I took food to the workers a few times myself. It is in an established neighborhood where I have family and well-cared for. Small home too. She has always worked and her son is graduating and up for a full-ride merit scholarship---for scholars, not athletes. Her daughter is still in high school. She and her children volunteer in the community. She has a healthcare job but works for a church too.

You can bet she appreciates it. This is what the organization meant to do from the beginning.

theoriginaldeb said:

All this brings to mind my pet peeve....about 'the something for nothing' crowd.
I stopped at the corner market last night on my way home from work to pick up an evening newspaper.
I waited in line behind two women...with some amusement ....at first....at the huge pile of snack foods on the checkout counter....chips, candy etc. It was at least $30 dollars worth. I really didn't think anything about it until the younger one pulled out an Oregon Trail card (Oregon food stamps) to pay....
The older one carried out the bag of snacks. The younger one carried out the malt liquor.
I am still too astonished to say much...except that our governor made a huge show a few months ago.. of buying food totalling the amount a food stamp recipient receives monthly ....saying long and loud how hard it is to get by on this small allowance.
The monthly allowance for a mother and child I know is about $340.
I took the mother and child I know shopping a few times...after a couple months I started teaching her to shop and cook so her food would last....she now has a job and is starting to support herself.

Click to expand...

A lot of them don't "really" live off just food stamps. They get money from under the table jobs, dope selling, or a "baby's daddy" that sells dope gives them money. That was my experience from working in the ghetto, anyway.


CB

CelticRose:

OTOH, it may be that the "inspectors" are bought off and/or told by the politicians to not bother the Habitat construction sites as any delay to the construction caused by these inspectors could and would be spun as "evil white city gov't trying to keep the poor black n'brown folks from owning their own homes."

Fisher said:

Some residents dismiss their neighbours’ worries. Diennal Fields, 51, said people did not know how to look after their homes: “It’s simple stuff: if there is mildew, don’t get a lawyer, get a bottle of bleach.”

Click to expand...

I don't know how many times I've had to tell tenants this. For some reason everyone thinks a lawyer is the answer to mildew.

Depends on where the mildew is. If it's coming out on the walls from inside of the walls, a bottle of beach won't solve the problem. That can be a problem in the South when houses had water in the walls for some reason.

I remember hearing about a month ago that one would never want a Habitat home, because they fall apart quicker than other places. I didn't believe it. Then I read this.

I know it's popular to dog those getting a handout, especially if they're brown in color, but you know, it's quite possible that it's not just lazy-ass tenants, but poor construction. I'm not saying there aren't abusers of the system. There are. However, there are people who are grateful for the help and they deserve a sound house and proper inspector oversight.

This entire neighborhood was made up of brick ranches with lot sizes at almost an acre.
There was one very small "postage stamp" wooded lot left and somehow Habitat got ahold of it and built a little cracker box frame house on it.

In the summer, they will cut the grass up to a point. Then where the slight ditch area begins and on to the street, they would not cut. So big ole rag weed and other type weeds grew waist high.
I finally said well the ones living right near there (new Mexican buyers) won't complain so I will. The enforcement guy later was laughing saying they informed him it was not their responsbility to cut from the "ditch" to the street, that was the city or counties job. He said he also pointed out to them, look around, see all the other houses? They cut all the way to the street....so like duuuuh, somehow they were exempt?

Oh and the tax assessor site around here showed Habitat was paying the property taxes on this house for a couple of years too. I have not checked it in a while though.
A long time resident who had some mental limitations whose parents died was forced to sell (and now its a section 8 rental) because she couldnt pay the taxes, yet these unwanted newcomers taxes get paid for them.

As a homeowner, it is my responsibility to take care of the mold. It is my responsibility to replace the roof. It is my responsibility to mow the lawn (all the way to the street). It is also my responsibility to clear the sidewalk and to pickup the trash that the idiot neighbor kid keeps throwing in my yard. Ain't homeownership great??? I don't care how much sweat equity an individual has in their personal slice of the American dream, if you don't take ownership (responsibility) completely, eventually it the walls will come tumbling down. Obviously, too much was given to these bloodsuckers throughout their lives for them to understand this concept.

Here's an article from a year and a half ago, for more perspective. (I highlighted some sections). Keep in mind these are NEW homes - major problems started appearing when the homes were less than 5 years old!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/us/17habitat.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — When Habitat for Humanity built the Fairway Oaks development here seven years ago, Mary Zeigler thought, “This is a blessing.” In just 17 days, an army of 10,000 volunteers, including former President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter, built 85 low-cost houses, one of the nonprofit group’s biggest “blitz build” projects.

“I could have something to call mine,” recalled Ms. Zeigler, now 63, sitting in the coolness of her house’s central air conditioning. In a lifetime of work, she had never been able to afford her own home.

Seven years later, Ms. Zeigler is one of more than 50 Fairway Oaks homeowners who have problems with their houses and say they fear that the blitz construction was shoddy and that their land, adjacent to two former town dumps, is unstable or contaminated.

“My pride is gone,” Ms. Zeigler said, pointing to cracks in her house’s ceiling and its concrete slab foundation. “I’ve got a 25-year mortgage, and I’ve got stuff that needs to be addressed or I’m just paying my mortgage in vain, because I won’t have a house in 25 years because it will be falling apart.”

The Fairway Oaks owners took their complaints to Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, and of 56 who answered a survey for Legal Aid, 41 reported cracked concrete slabs, 22 had cracked walls and 48 said their houses were infested with insects or rodents, presumably because of the cracks. Others reported mold or mildew, nails popping out of plasterboard and other problems. The Habitat for Humanity local affiliate, HabiJax, maintains that the land at Fairway Oaks is stable and that most problems there are housekeeping issues, not structural. City inspectors this month examined six houses and found no violations. But in a vulnerable population, the perceptions have a life of their own. A project built with sweat equity and good will has had unintended consequences, and costs.

Jacksonville, in the northeast corner of the state, is a struggling former paper-mill town with one of the nation’s highest rates of home foreclosures. Rumors about contamination at the Fairway Oaks property began long before HabiJax got involved.

In the early 1990s the land held a blighted public housing complex, built on land that had been used, in isolated pockets, as a dump. After complaints by residents, the Environmental Protection Agency tested the soil for contamination. The E.P.A. concluded that the land was safe but noted that two buildings had been demolished because of soil settling, possibly caused by debris decomposing under the soil. A later soil test found elevated levels of arsenic, but the Florida Department of Health determined there was no significant health risk.

Ronnie A. Ferguson, president of the Jacksonville Housing Authority, said the two buildings had been damaged by water runoff, not because of soil instability associated with buried debris.

As the complex deteriorated, the housing authority offered the land to HabiJax for one dollar. For HabiJax, the land fit their mission, said Mary Kay O’Rourke, the HabiJax president. The project would remove a public blight and replace tax-subsidized housing with homes for people who could not otherwise afford them.

The first residents, mostly single women who had never owned homes, bought in for $500 down, 300 hours of sweat equity, and no-interest mortgages of around $45,000 to $61,000. Monthly payments, including insurance, are generally less than $300. HabiJax ran bus tours to show off the new community.

But when homeowners started having problems, several of them said the organization was aloof and unresponsive. In 2005, the cracks in one foundation became so severe that the house had to be lifted and settled on piers. Engineers hired by HabiJax found six feet of debris buried under the soil. April Charney, a Legal Aid lawyer representing the homeowners, said HabiJax had an obligation to tell residents that part of the development’s land had previously been used as a garbage dump.

Before October 2005, few knew how widely their complaints were shared. Then, Shirley Dempsey, president of the homeowners association, said she began having a series of dreams that she said were religious visions, leading her to discover problems in her house and others. Most had the same complaints: cracks in the slabs and walls, rotting door frames, leaky plumbing. Many residents had developed rashes.

On a recent afternoon, Ms. Dempsey, 52, sat in her living room amid artwork commemorating the accomplishments of African-Americans. Her bare concrete floor had a crack running the width of the house, wide enough to insert quarters at three places. She pointed to poorly hung doors, cracked walls, nails popping through plasterboard and spots that she said were mold.

“They let us down,” said Ms. Dempsey, who earns $10.50 an hour at a nearby mall and pays $295 a month for her mortgage and homeowner’s insurance. “They was going to let us live out here and not say anything.”

Ms. O’Rourke disputes this. In April, HabiJax officials asked residents to report problems. Of 36 responses, she said, workers have resolved 25 and are “working on the others.”

Even on the blitz construction schedule, she said, all work was supervised by licensed builders and then fully inspected. Professionals — not volunteers — handled the wiring, plumbing, heating, air conditioning and structural work, she said.

“These homeowners have been pulling up carpeting and noticing cracks” in their concrete slabs, Ms. O’Rourke said, taking care to praise many for their work maintaining their homes. But she said, “There’s an innocence when you go into home ownership for the first time. There’s been attention recently because of the scares, people telling them, if you have a crack, it’s a problem.”

Houses in the development have recently sold for more than $90,000, demonstrating that their values are rising, not falling, she said.

About the residents’ concerns of soil contamination, she said, “I don’t know how you change people’s opinions.”

Some residents dismiss their neighbors’ complaints, attributing them to poor maintenance by first-time homeowners. “Lots of problems, people can take care of themselves,” said Dinelle Fields, 51. “Get a bleach bottle,” she said, referring to complaints about mildew.

Even some of the homeowners with complaints expressed ambivalence. “I’m not speaking bad about HabiJax,” said Deanna Norris, 42, who complained about cracks and bugs in her house and worried that mold, mildew or soil contamination was contributing to her 5-year-old daughter’s chronic health problems. “It’s a good program for poor single people like me. But when things go bad, I just want them to do something about it.”

For Iris McCloud Moody, who moved to her four-bedroom house from a $500 rental apartment in public housing, assurances from HabiJax provided no comfort. In 2005, she said, the back of her house started to sink, making her feel as if she was walking downhill. Engineers hired by HabiJax lifted the back on hydraulic beams and resettled it on buried piers; the work has a 20-year warranty.

But even after the repair, Ms. Moody said, she hears constant cracking sounds, and fears the house will fall on her daughter and two sons. HabiJax has declined her request for relocation, she said. “This was my first house,” she said. “I thought it was going to be the American dream.”

She added, “The warranty’s going to run out. I’m worried that I can’t sell it. Or just say, I’m leaving it to the kids, and it’s falling apart.”

A minor defense for SOME of the HFH construction: After Hurricane Andrew, it was discovered that the least roof damage occurred in houses built by HFH. They didn't skip installing rafters' hurricane ties after the building inspectors had left.

'Rat