Habitat for Humanity opens Belize office
This is the one time every five years that Belizeans should have no trouble securing land. Indeed, some politicians are handing out house lots like they were ideals on a hot summer day. But a lot is not a house… and to help bridge that gap a well known organization is about to set up shop in Belize. Habitat for Humanity is the largest grass-roots non-profit house-building organization in the world. Barbara and Edward Dunsworth are heading up Habitat’s efforts here and Barbara told us that the program provides a hand up, not a handout.
Barbara Dunsworth, International Partner, H.F.H.I.
“We’ve come at the invitation of a local provisional committee headed by Reverend Moises Chan of the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church here in Belize City. Habitat is a grassroots organization and we don’t go where we are not invited to come, so that’s why we are here.
There are basically three criteria that can qualify you for the program. The first is need. If you are living in substandard or poverty housing, you will qualify. The second criteria is the willingness to partner with Habitat in building your own home and building the homes of other people. It’s a self help program and the third thing is the ability to pay, because Habitat will sell you your home when it is built, and the thing that makes it affordable to poor families is that it is sold to you at no profit and no interest affordable mortgages.”
Q: “Okay, can you give us an estimate of the cost?”
Barbara Dunsworth
“I can’t really because it all depends on how much building materials will be here. So that’s something that we haven’t worked out yet. That will be established by the local Belize City affiliate committee, once that committee is up and running. That will be one of their jobs – first job’s to establish that.”
According to Dunsworth, the homeowner’s monthly mortgage payments will go into a revolving fund that will be used to build more houses. H.F.H.I., which is probably best known for the volunteer work of former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, operates in fifty eight countries worldwide and has built over twenty thousand homes in Latin America and the Caribbean. For more information on Habitat for Humanity International, you can contact the Dunsworths at telephone number 30618 or Reverend Moises Chan at the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church.
