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Habitat for Humanity Builds Green

Solar panels may sound green-chic and out-of-reach, but in one neighborhood near the San Francisco Bay, it’s low-income folks who’ll be soaking up the bennies of a naturally heated home.

Habitat for Humanity – in partnership with neighborhood churches, city government and an environmental-rating company called Green Point Rated – recently put up an entire neighborhood of low-income, eco-friendly homes in Livermore, California. Complete with solar panels, ventilating skylights, whole-house fans, and natural linoleum floors, these two-story homes offer affordable housing to families that otherwise couldn’t afford to own property in the city in which they work.

The median sales price of a new home in Livermore tops $640,000, while the median family income falls shy of $84,000 per year, placing the community off-limits to working class families. But when Habitat officials discovered that building green was no more expensive than building conventional homes, they decided to put up an entire community of homes (22 in all) with environmentally friendly features. Not only are the homes easier on the planet, they help the families who move in save money on heating and cooling bills.

In exchange, families who qualify for the homes have to help build them and also must promise to sell them to other low-income families if they ever move out. That means they can’t cash in on any appreciation that may build in the homes they helped to construct.

Then again, they don’t have to pay interest on their mortgages, either, which gives green living a whole new meaning.

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To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org