Somewhere around the world, or in the United States, or just down the
street, a family struggles to get by. Squalor abounds, bills don’t
get paid, homework is ignored. Health deteriorates — and so does
hope. A shroud of poverty envelopes everyone living in substandard housing.
It is estimated that more than 5 million families in the United States
alone live in unimaginable conditions.
According to a report prepared for Congress in 2003 by the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 5.1 million American
households face "worst-case housing needs." These
families:
- are renters receiving no government assistance;
- make less than 50 percent of the area median income;
- pay more than 50 percent of their income for rent and utilities
and/or live in housing with severe physical deficiencies;
- include some 3.6 million children, 1.6 million elderly adults and
1.3 million disabled adults.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Our friends at Habitat for Humanity
knew that when they began their ministry nearly 30 years ago. Habitat
has worked with more than 175,000 families to provide shelter for almost
a million people. And that underscores the relationship between Thrivent
Financial and Habitat.
Thrivent Builds is an effort to dramatically increase the number of
homes Habitat builds in a year – beyond the homes Habitat already
builds. The goal is to build hundreds of homes per year with Habitat, from the
inner cities of America to neighborhoods around the world.
