Habitat

Today was my third day that I helped building a house. I volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, an international charity that builds houses and then sells them to poor people who normally can’t afford to buy a house. They get a very nice interest free mortgage, so instead of paying rent they slowly pay of their house, and this hopefully reverses the downward spiral of accumulating more and more debt.

The Montréal chapter of Habitat for Humanity just started so there is only one building location. Last year they’ve built one house and now another one is built next to it. It’s a small contribution but you have to start somewhere.

This weekend I assist making a form to pour concrete in, that will become the stairs into the basement. With all the rain of the past weeks that proved a challenge since the soil is saturated with water and not very stable. The house is built on one of the lower parts of the island of Montréal so there is no rock underneath the house but clay. Backbreaking hard digging, but fun to do things I’ve never done before. It might come in handy one day.

Working with volunteers is quite a challenge. Especially when they sometimes have no experience with construction or for that matter with physical labour in general. The general contractor who oversees everything is glad when there aren’t that many volunteers so he can make sure that there aren’t too many errors made, that have to be corrected later. Today there are too many people and a lot of “watching other people work” is taking place. Since I’m one of the people that work I don’t mind too much, but I can understand that spending your weekend not doing very much can be quite frustrating. I think Habitat needs to organize things a bit better, otherwise a lot of volunteers will not come back.

Not everything is done by volunteers: a lot of the harder things are done by paid professionals. Like the plumbing, framing, foundation, electricity, the roof and the windows and doors. That way the structural integrity of the house is secured.