Habitat for Humanity campaign aims to improve home affordability
Nearly 19 million households across the United States are spending at least half of their income on a place to live, often forgoing basic necessities such as food and healthcare to make ends meet.
In Delaware, one in nine households spend more than half of their income on housing. The stability that housing should bring continues to remain out of reach for many people.
Sussex County Habitat for Humanity, Habitat for Humanity of New Castle County and Central Delaware Habitat for Humanity joined Habitat organizations across the country June 12 to launch a new national advocacy campaign called Cost of Home, aimed at improving home affordability for 10 million people in the U.S. over the next five years.
All three habitat organizations in Delaware will work together to bring awareness to the high cost of housing in the state, and find solutions to ensure everyone has access to safe, decent and affordable homes.
Marking significant growth in habitat’s commitment to ensuring that everyone has a safe and decent place to call home, the Cost of Home campaign seeks to identify and improve policies and systems through coordinated advocacy efforts at the local, state and federal levels.
Cost of Home focuses on improving housing affordability across the housing continuum in four specific policy areas: increasing supply and preservation of affordable homes, equitably increasing access to credit, optimizing land use for affordable homes, and ensuring access to and development of communities of opportunity.
“We are not going to build our way out of the affordable housing crisis in Delaware,” said Kevin Gilmore, executive director of Sussex County Habitat for Humanity. “It is time for everyone to realize that the lack of affordable, safe housing is not just a problem for those who don’t have access, but a problem for all of us.”
For more details about habitat’s Cost of Home policy platform, go to www.habitat.org/costofhome. For more information, contact Katie Millard in Sussex County at Katie@sussexcountyhabitat.org or 302-855-1153, Ext. 214.
