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Habitat For Humanity Frames Houses Offsite

Yahoo News, AP

Tuesday 29 November 2005, 10:29 am
Keywords: Katrina Hurricane Relief , News Articles

By Elliott Minor, Associated Press Writer

To speed up the recovery, Habitat volunteers around the country have been building house frames that are being shipped to the Gulf Coast, where they'll eventually become homes for hurricane survivors in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

In partnership with NBC's "Today" show and Warner Music Group, volunteers in September worked around the clock to frame 65 homes at New York's Rockefeller Plaza. The effort was nationally televised each morning and featured dozens of celebrities.

Similar house-framing drives have occurred in Jackson, Miss., and Burbank, Calif. A partnership with Major League Baseball also resulted in more homes being framed in Houston during the World Series.

Habitat's latest build took volunteers to the Washington Mall last week, where they planned to assemble another 51 house frames in partnership with Freddie Mac, which assists institutions that grant home mortgages.

Despite the focus on the recent disasters, Habitat affiliates have been able to maintain their normal home-building pace elsewhere in the past year. Worldwide, Habitat volunteers build about 20,000 homes a year, including 5,000 in the United States.

It took 26 years to build 100,000 homes, but only five years to build the second 100,000.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051123/ap_on_re_us/habitat_s_visibility_1