HomeAid Reaches New Milestone: More Than 100,000 Homeless Served
Despite Difficult Economy, Builders and Their Trade Partners Continue to Give
Back to Their Communities by Building Homeless Housing Facilities Across the
U.S.
NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – October 28, 2008 – HomeAid, a leading national
non-profit provider of housing for today’s homeless, proudly announced that the
organization has attained a very significant growth milestone: more than 100,000
homeless men, women and children have been served in HomeAid’s 170 nationwide
multi-unit homeless housing facilities. This milestone holds special
significance because it truly reflects the HomeAid model of marshaling the
resources of the homebuilding industry to build and donate housing to service
provider organizations that serve individuals and families who are temporarily
homeless.
Celebrating its 20th year of helping America’s homeless population, HomeAid has
grown to 22 nationwide chapters in 16 states. The organization’s 170 multi-unit
homeless housing facilities provide more than 4,200 beds each night to serve
homeless families and individuals, and represent more than $120 million in
project construction costs. As homeless men, women and children graduate from
homelessness in HomeAid-built facilities into affordable housing, these beds
open for a new occupant to begin a recovery process and become self-sufficient.
The resulting “multiplier effect” for each bed accounts for the
100,000-person-served milestone.
“Our model involves builders and their trade partners donating their time,
resources, materials and expertise to construct multi-unit homeless housing
facilities,” said Jeffrey Slavin, CEO of HomeAid. “Being able to help more than
100,000 homeless individuals, a large percentage of whom are children, makes a
very powerful statement about the generosity of the homebuilding industry,
especially during these difficult economic times.”
“HomeAid enables builders to do what they do best: build. Sometimes, a builder
or trade partner may not be able to contribute money, but they can certainly
give their time and expertise,” said Bert Selva, president and CEO of Shea
Homes. “The payback is to help someone who is homeless in his or her
transition, and, person-by-person, you start making a difference in the world.”
According to Slavin, HomeAid’s facilities have seen an average contribution of
labor and materials of 61 percent of the total direct construction cost of the
structure. “This donation rate enables a homeless service provider who is given
a facility to realize a leveraging effect, when all project costs are included,
of more than twice the hard dollars invested in the project,” noted Slavin.
“This leveraging effect has enabled our service providers to add capacity to
help their communities’ homeless population become productive members of
society.”
With another 55 projects in development across all of HomeAid’s chapters, the
organization expects that the number of people served and total construction
amounts will dramatically increase in the next few years. “As new chapters are
added and our organization’s capacity grows to help other non-profit service
providers, the ultimate benefactors will be the nation’s 3.5 million homeless
families and individuals to whom HomeAid represents an opportunity to rebuild
their lives,” said Slavin.