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Housing Projects Planned for Underprivileged

DUBAI - Dubai’s impressive construction projects — the tallest building in the world, residences on manmade islands and air conditioned beaches — are a far cry from the kind of homes Jonathan T.M. Reckford usually helps build.

Reckford, the CEO of US-based non profit organisation Habitat for Humanity, visited Dubai on Tuesday after his organisation formed a new partnership with Dubai’s ETA Star to fund and bring volunteers to housing projects for people who cannot afford homes of their own in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Ethiopia.

On Monday, Reckford met in Doha with the Amir of Qatar His Highness Shaikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. After Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast of the United States in 2005, Shaikh Hamad donated money to help rebuild houses.

“He has been very generous to us post Katrina and visited the US last year to follow up,” Reckford said.

Habitat for Humanity currently works in Jordan, on post-conflict reconstruction projects in Lebanon and with rag picking communities in Egypt.

While Habitat’s financing is firm for now, Reckford said he is concerned that the economic downturn will hinder his organisation’s ability to grow while simultaneously creating a greater need for housing. The organisation hopes to find more corporate and business partners in Dubai and set up a small Middle East office for coordination, and is looking for ways to involve people directly in projects. “We feel so strongly about not just getting people to open their cheque book,” he said.

Dubai’s Community Development Authority recently published a survey showing low levels of volunteerism, something which CDA’s director general Dr Maryam Matar said is an important area to develop.

“Volunteerism gives many benefits both to society in general and to the volunteer as an individual,” she said in an email following the survey. “Volunteer programmes are an excellent way to increase one’s social network, learn new skills and to contribute to the community.”

Reckford’s Dubai and Qatar visits come after a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he participated in discussions on sustainable cities. He sees poverty housing as a critical element as populations become more concentrated in urban areas.

“You can’t think about long term sustainability if you don’t think about how you’re going to house people,” Reckford said.

While many organisations donate money and food to people who cannot afford it, Habitat requires people to help build their home and also pay a modest mortgage based on their salary.

“Historically, direct charity helps in the short term,” Reckford said. Requiring families to pay both financially and in labour gives them ownership over their home. “They haven’t been given something, they’ve earned it.”

Reckford, whose diverse professional background includes Goldman Sachs, Disney and church ministry, became CEO of Habitat in 2005. He worked on his first housing project in 1992 as part of company volunteer effort.

“It was a growing sense of wanting to merge together vocation and avocation,” Reckford said. “Combining the complexity and the scale I like in the private sector but with a greater purpose.”

While Reckford was in Dubai, the organisation’s founder Millard Fuller died at the age of 74. Habitat for Humanity was founded on Christian religious principles, but Reckford said the organisation’s roots are rarely a hindrance to its objectives. Internationally, he said he has seen diverse communities begin to understand one another as they work on construction projects.

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