Help build strength and stability

At Habitat for Humanity, we build. We build because we believe that everyone, everywhere should have a healthy, affordable place to call home. When a family helps build or improve a place they can call home, they are also building a better community, a better life for themselves.

Habitat for Humanity partners with people in the Nez Perce and Asotin Counties, and all over the world, to help them build or improve a place they can call home. Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage.

Our Vision/Mission

The vision of L-C Valley Habitat is “a world where everyone has a decent place to live.” Habitat for Humanity’s role in realizing that vision is expressed in its mission: “Seeking to put God’s love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities, and hope.”

All Are Welcome

L-C Valley Habitat for Humanity has an open-door policy. All who believe that everyone needs a decent, affordable place to live are welcome to help with the work, regardless of race, religion, age, gender, political views or any of the other distinctions that too often divide people. In short, Habitat welcomes volunteers and supporters from all backgrounds and also serves people in need of decent housing regardless of race or religion. As a matter of policy, Habitat for Humanity International and its affiliated organizations do not proselytize. This means that Habitat will not offer assistance on the expressed or implied condition that people must either adhere to or convert to a particular faith, or listen and respond to messaging designed to induce conversion to a particular faith.

About Habitat for Humanity

Driven by the vision that everyone needs a decent place to live, Habitat for Humanity began in 1976 as a grassroots effort on a community farm in southern Georgia. The Christian housing organization has since grown to become a leading global nonprofit working in nearly 1,400 communities throughout the U.S. and in nearly 70 countries.

Families and individuals in need of a hand up partner with Habitat for Humanity to build or improve a place they can call home. Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage.

Through financial support, volunteering or adding a voice to support affordable housing, everyone can help families achieve the strength, stability and self-reliance they need to build better lives for themselves. Through shelter, we empower. To learn more, visit habitat.org.

Guiding Principles

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 the love and grace in our world. We believe that, through faith, the minuscule can me multiplied to accomplish the magnificent, and that, in faith, respectful relationships can grown among all people.

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 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.

In response to the prophet Micah’s call to do justice, to live 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.

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.

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.

Top 10 Myths about Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity offers homeownership opportunities to families who are unable to obtain conventional house financing. Generally, this includes those whose income is 30 to 60 percent of the area’s median income. In most cases, prospective Habitat homeowner families make a $500.00 down payment.

Additionally, they contribute up to 500 hours of “sweat equity” on the construction of their home or someone else’s home. Because Habitat houses are built using donations of land, material and labor, mortgage payments are kept affordable.

The Habitat homeownership program is not for a free house, but eligible families buy their home with an affordable mortgage. So, our families do pay for their homes, and they also work hard for them by performing “sweat equity. “

Numerous studies have shown that affordable housing has no adverse effects on a community’s property values. Habitat ensures that our homes are well-built and fit in to the rest of the neighborhood.

The only criteria for a Habitat House are ability to pay, need for housing, and willingness to partner. Habitat for Humanity of Asotin, and Nez Perce County is an Equal Opportunity Lender and a Fair Housing organization. We follow all Equal Opportunity Lending and Fair Housing laws, we do not discriminate based on race, religion, nation of origin, gender, sexual orientation, family status, marital status or any other protected classes.

All households, whether families with children, without children, or single individuals, are encouraged to apply. Our staff is prepared to work with households at various levels or preparedness for homeownership and we encourage any low-income household with the dream of ownership to apply.

Meeting the basic needs of their families is a struggle for many working low-income families and qualified prospective Habitat Homebuyers.

Sometimes temporary public assistance for low-income families earning less than half of the area median income helps them make ends meet.  However, affordable loan payments on a Habitat home decreases the number of families needing assistance.

Meeting the basic needs of their families is a struggle for many working low-income families and qualified prospective Habitat homebuyers. Sometimes temporary public assistance for low-income families earning less than 50% of the area median income helps them make ends meet. However, affordable loan payments on a Habitat home decreases the number of families needing assistance. A recent study of Habitat Homeowners in Minnesota showed that 26% Habitat homebuyers received government assistance before they bought a home and only 3% needed it after they bought their home.

Neither Habitat for Humanity International, nor L-C Valley Habitat, is an arm of the government. Habitat is a nonprofit organization, independent of the government.  Habitat does accept some government funds, grants, and property to help build affordable housing for those in need and to help with neighborhood revitalization.

While Habitat has to meet certain criteria to get, and be good stewards of those funds, Habitat is not an arm of any governmental body. Local affiliates, like L-C Valley Habitat for Humanity, institute specific guidelines to prevent them from becoming dependent on, or controlled by, any government body.

Habitat was started in 1976 in Americus, Ga., by the late Millard Fuller and his wife Linda. President Carter and his wife Rosalynn (whose home is eight miles from Americus, in Plains, Ga.), have been longtime Habitat supporters and volunteers who help bring national and international attention to the organization’s house-building work. Each year, they lead the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project to help build houses and raise awareness of the need for affordable housing.

All homes built by Habitat must not only meet or surpass every building code in the communities we build in, they must also match the size and quality of surrounding homes. When Habitat builds new homes, or rehabs distressed or vacant properties, we develop quality, attractive, simple, modern homes.

All homes must pass stringent inspections by city or county inspectors. Sometimes we even undergo more inspections than other homes due to federal grants that we receive. While most of the work on the homes is done by volunteers, all volunteers are trained and supervised by Habitat staff. In addition, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and other skilled work is done by licensed professionals. The results are homes that meet or exceed all codes and standards of the area.

Habitat homeowners are chosen without regard to race, religion or ethnic group, in keeping with U.S law and with Habitat’s abiding belief that God’s love extends to everyone. Habitat also welcome volunteers from all faiths, or no faith, who actively embrace Habitat’s goal of eliminating poverty housing from the world.

Making safe, stable, affordable housing available to everyone is a huge issue, but Habitat believes that by continuing to build more homes by partnering with other committed groups, developing new partnerships and innovative approaches, and by putting the issue of poverty housing in the hearts and minds of compassionate people everywhere, the problem can be solved.