EDITORIAL: House a Veteran

March 31, 2008

The good folks at Habitat for Humanity of Georgetown County are correct: Our communities have put too little focus on the needs of S.C. National Guard members deployed to Iraq. Director Annie Perrault went to the heart of the matter last week: 'We owe these people an incredible debt of gratitude. When they leave, they leave their jobs. It's an enormous financial sacrifice.'

Nice words - which Habitat-Georgetown intends to back with action. As The Sun News reported this week, the organization plans to build a home for former Guardsman Latherio Jackson next month. The gentleman, a Carvers Bay native, completed a one-year tour in 2005, his unit providing escort security for military convoys. Now, he has completed work on a heating, ventilation and air-conditioning certificate at Horry-Georgetown Technical College and is ready to settle down with his family.

So he and his fiancee applied for a Habitat home. The Habitat-Georgetown board of directors, like the other Habitat boards in our communities, gets a lot of applications from qualified potential homeowners. Board members recognized Jackson's military service as a valid criterion for a Habitat house and approved the application. Work on the home, to be erected on a Georgetown site, will begin next month - if Habitat-Georgetown can close the $5,000 gap between resources in hand and resources needed.

As a general proposition, local Habitat chapters are especially worthy of donor support. Decent stick-built housing that persons with limited incomes in our communities can afford is scarce. The Habitat chapters in Georgetown and Horry counties, and in Brunswick County, N.C., have a proven business model - one that emphasizes personal responsibility - for meeting this need.

The persons they select for Habitat homes must first expend 200 hours of sweat equity on other Habitat homes - a sort of down payment alternative. When their turn for a new house comes, they and others help with construction and finishing work, supported by the generosity of local building supply outlets and construction firms. After they move in, the new homeowners make payments on low-interest Habitat mortgages, the earnings from which are recycled into new mortgages. Along the way, the new homeowners receive Habitat training in the responsibilities and challenges of home ownership.

Habitat places people in homes without benefit of government subsidies - though local governments have contributed land for Habitat homes. It's a brilliant business model with only one weakness: Habitat can't possibly build enough homes to meet the needs of local folks who qualify for its help.

Habitat-Georgetown deserves great credit for recognizing the economic disruptions that National Guard service in Iraq can exert on young men and women. Readers who agree should send checks marked 'Veteran Build' and made out to Habitat for Humanity of Georgetown County to Emily Mobley at P.O. Box 2411, Georgetown, SC 29442-2411.

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