SunForAll Solar Spotlight: San Diego Habitat for Humanity

Millard Fuller and his wife Linda hit a crossroads in their life and decided to leave financially lucrative careers and dedicate their lives to service. They were inspired by their strong faith and by a man named Clarence Jordan. Jordan had created a community in Americus, Georgia called Koinonia, and it was where the idea that became Habitat for Humanity first grew. Clarence was a social justice advocate, and Habitat was formed as a social justice organization with the conviction that everyone should have a simple, decent, and affordable home so they could live in dignity and safety.

Habitat now works in all 50 states in the U.S. and in more than 70 countries and has helped more than 29 million people. Each affiliate has its own board of directors and raises its own funds. The San Diego affiliate started when Millard Fuller convinced his San Diego friends, Denis and Georgia Briscoe, to start an affiliate. The First United Methodist Church in San Diego had a Sunday school class that committed to raising the needed funds, and they pulled together $40,000 to start the organization. In 1988 the organization was up and running.

Seeking to put God’s love into action, San Diego Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities, and hope. Our values are promoting shelter, stability, strength, action, and self-reliance, and together we stand for inclusion, housing equity, sustainability and dignity for all.

We partner with families, neighborhood groups, community organizations, the corporate community and local governments to build and repair homes. We offer opportunities for families to help build and purchase their homes at a price that is based on their income rather than what the market dictates. Through our Neighborhood Revitalization program, we offer critical home repairs and home preservation improvements that maintain existing affordable housing stock and enable people to age in place safely. When families can afford a home, they choose to invest in their community.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention our ReStores. They are retail centers open to the public that sell new and gently used building materials, supplies, and home furnishings. Proceeds from the sales go right into our mission of affordable homeownership.

Caring about the community means caring about the environment we share. San Diego Habitat for Humanity builds stability through shelter – and we build stability for our community by using sustainable building practices. Making our homes energy efficient is one way, and now our operations can be more sustainable by using solar energy.

One of the initiatives inside of this idea is our partnership with Blue Jeans go Green, a program that upcycles denim into insulation for our houses. Additionally, we always seek to install energy efficient lighting and fixtures, use drought-tolerant landscaping, and plant shade trees when we build.

Housing affordability is a social justice issue. The rate of homeownership in California for Black and Latinx households is lower than ownership rates for white households. This is due to decades-long discriminatory housing policies such as redlining, which excluded buyers — based on race and ethnicity — from certain geographic areas and access to traditional financing for homeownership.

In addition to building the homes to strict environmental standards, we provide education to our homeowners on how to best maintain their home in the most energy efficient way. This not only helps the environment, but it becomes more cost effective over the long-term, adding to the financial stability of the homeowner. Home equity represents the largest financial asset for U.S. households, and homeownership is the number one means of accumulating generational financial security — something non-white households have historically and systematically been denied access to.

Ultimately, the more money we can save on energy bills – the more opportunity we have to build more homes and partner with more homeowners.

Building is a resource heavy industry. It is always great when we can afford to use renewable resources. ALWAYS. And I love the message to donors that we will be saving so much in the long run, that their donations can go even further.

We were working with BQuest Foundation on another effort, and they brought SunForAll to our attention. When we were invited to apply, the timing was perfect. It was the combination grant/affordable financing that made the difference for us.

The team at CollectiveSun is fantastic. They have been so helpful, informative, encouraging – and really walked us through every step of the way. Their experience and guidance is exactly what we needed.

We’re a construction company, and so, to some extent, we should have been able to think about all the things an organization should think about having to do. And even we didn’t get it perfect. There were extra costs involved, and we didn’t anticipate all of the steps. Things like closing off all of the parking lot during installation can seem monumental and do impact operations – even if only for a short time.

As the region (and the world) continues to move towards more energy efficient and environmentally friendly ways of developing, we hope to find solutions that are equally cost effective and environmentally responsible. Solar is the first big step.