Problem

Over 58,000 Austinites live in substandard or overcrowded housing, and rent often exceeds family income. The annual income required to purchase a median priced home in Austin is $56,756, but the fastest growing population in Austin earns $24,999 or less per year. To afford an average 2-bedroom apartment in Austin a family needs to make about $17.54/hour, 3 times minimum wage. Habitat gives families who have no other hope of ever owning their own home the opportunity to achieve their dreams.

The Gift

Your gift will provide one kitchen cabinet for a Habitat home in Austin, bringing one more family that much closer to a place to call home.

Through volunteer labor and donations of money and materials, Habitat builds simple, decent houses with the help of the homeowner (partner) families. Habitat houses are sold to partner families at no profit and financed with affordable loans. The homeowners’ monthly mortgage payments are used to build still more Habitat houses. In addition to a down payment and the monthly mortgage payments, homeowners invest hundreds of hours of their own labor — sweat equity — into building their Habitat house and the houses of others.

In 22 years of building homes in partnership with low-income families, Austin Habitat volunteers have worked with recipient families to create over 200 affordable new houses for people in need.