Habitat's New Year's Resolutions

A new year often brings with it the infamous new year’s resolution. And while at Habitat, we aren’t planning any new exercise regimens or taking up a musical instrument — we do like to start off a fresh new calendar with a look at what we’re committing to for the year.

Here are just a few of our new year’s resolutions for 2022. They may not be new — they’re ideals as old as Habitat for Humanity — but we’re no less resolved to hold ourselves to them!

Build More

Sure, this one may sound obvious. Building is what we do, after all. And we continually set our sights higher, aiming to serve more people and families in need of decent, stable places to call home. In fact, we crossed a milestone last year, our 35th anniversary, marking 15,000 people served — and took no time to rest on our laurels. Instead, we continued the work to build more. The new year is kicking off with bringing homeownership within reach of families throughout our service area, whether it’s the 42 new townhomes about to start taking shape in Walnut Creek, or the beautiful historical building in San Jose that will soon be home to four local families, or renovations in Pittsburg and Oakland that will be the future homes of two Habitat families.

But we’re also building relationships, because collaboration is key to serving more people. We’re expanding our relationships to keep more of our neighbors in the homes and communities they love through Home Preservation – relationships like a three-year partnership with Alameda County that will enable us to prevent substandard living conditions or even displacement for even more people.

We’re exploring more relationships like our collaborations with the City of San Jose, HomeFirst, and Abode Services that resulted in secure shelter and amenities for hundreds of unhoused people, and access to the services that will help them pave a path out of homelessness.

Relationships with community centers, libraries, resource hubs, and financial service providers are expanding access to our Housing and Financial Counseling services – which, along with providing virtual services and our free, personalized online Financial Education Center, means that more people than ever can get the skills, habits, and information they need to empower themselves toward homeownership, financial wellness, or other life goals. We’re even building relationships that help other affordable housing creators serve their communities through our CDFI, Habitat Community Capital.

Work Toward Justice

At Habitat, we’re firmly committed to justice and equity. These principles were the seeds of the Habitat movement, which grew out of the fertile soil of an interracial, cooperative farm in rural Georgia in the early 1940s – principles of racial equity considered so radical at the time that some of the farm’s founders and members were excommunicated from their church and the farm’s products were boycotted by the local community.

But while our dedication to these ideals is nothing new, this new year is a new opportunity to strengthen our commitment. We’re excited to ring in 2022 by honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision of a Beloved Community, a society free of prejudice and poverty. We’ve created an IDEA Committee for our own staff, a group whose mission is to ensure Habitat EBSV upholds the principles of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accountability in our work in the community as well as our practices within our staff and leadership. We are actively reviewing all of our communications and procedures with an eye to equity.

All this serves to bolster the work we do every day in the name of justice and equity. We believe that inequitable access to housing is a key driver and result of systemic injustice, and that our mission is a critical way to break down centuries of ingrained discrimination. By working to foster justice through housing, we work to ensure that, indeed, everyone has a decent place to live.

Honor Our Community

We’ve always been grateful for the community that comes together to make our work possible. But 2021 really brought it home, so to speak. The pandemic has prompted us to take stock of what community means to us. In a time when gathering is done with careful distance, when so many of our relationships have been relegated to webcams, when seeing the smile on a friendly face is a rare treat – we’ve become hyper-aware of how vital our community is not just to what we do, but who we are.

It’s why when it came to reflecting on 2021, community was the first thing that came to mind. And it’s why we dedicated our 2021 Annual Report to the people who make us who we are – people from every walk of life, who come through our doors (or our construction fences) for myriad reasons, who take individual personal meaning and purpose from the work. A beautiful, diverse tapestry of people and personalities who, while unique, are united in a drive toward justice and a community with housing and opportunity for all.

So, we’re coming into 2022 with gratitude and intention when it comes to you, our community. We want to honor the gift of your time, your talents, your financial support, your advocacy, your partnership – all the ways you make us who we are and drive our mission forward. And we’re committed to bringing our community back together this year with an emphasis on health and safety, to continue the work, together.

That’s what we’re resolved to do with this fresh new year! What are your resolutions for 2022? We hope that they involve being a part of ours! Help us stick to our resolutions by getting involved or supporting us!