HABITAT FOR HUMANIT STILL SUCKS.

Well they finally mowed the "yard" next to us in behind the Habitat For Humanity house they dumped on us. I am going to assume that it has something to do with Mary calling the city and filing a complaint because even if he would get off his ass and mow it, hit mower would not go though 4' tall weeds. I was going to mail off a letter to them today but I guess I won't. I was looking through their website and I noticed they had a photo gallery. Lots of happy folks taking part in a "blitz" That is where everyone comes in and wears t-shirts and drinks lemonaide and it is just the feel good event of the summer. Some were of the dedications of the new homes. What they don't show it the people that have to live next to this crap for the rest of thier lives. So I sent this with the subject line, "please add these to your photo gallery"

When the Iowa Valley chapter of Habitat for Humanity decided they were going to build a small house with no garage next to our house we were not happy. They had already built 2 others just on our block and were slowly taking over our neighborhood. We paid full price for our home, and then spent thousands of dollars and many many hours building on to and remodeling it. We were planning on staying here forever. Now we are trying to cut our losses and sell our house while we can still get something for it. We contacted the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity and expressed our concerns. There are other empty lots on our block and we wanted to know if they intended on buying them also. They responded by telling us that "while they are Muslims, they are nicer then many Christians I know" That was the most gross display of ignorance that I have ever heard. We really don't care about their religion at all. We care about protecting the single largest investment and asset our family has.
We watched the construcion of the house next door. That first weekend there was a huge surge of people. They were all smiling and getting their pictures taken. They were building walls that were 1-1/2 inches too tall because the journeyman was not there and nobody knew how to frame a house. Nor did they know how to make the interior walls plumb. I could stand in the street and see that the walls were a mess. But then after the party was over and everybody felt good about themselves, everybody just left. The family that would eventually take it over lived down the street. They drove by it every night on the way home. I guess they had put in their time and now somebody owed them a house. I guess her name was Rita because she was the only person we would see over there for weeks at a time.

When a representative of Habitat finally came out, many weeks after he said he would stop by, I again expressed my concerns about the value of the neighborhood being depreciated by over-saturation of small houses with no garages. As well as the stigma of H4H housing. Yes, there is a stigma. I know you feel very strongly about this cause. I commend you for trying to make a difference. But as a home-owner and average citizen I can tell you that from the perspective of the rest of the world, having Habitat houses on your block does not exactly sell your house for you. Now we have three. We would have probably had more except the city said to stop. There is a reason for that. I talked to Rita from H4H since at that time nobody had come by to talk to us. I expressed my concern. She said that is not true about devaluation of the neighborhood. I disagreed. She said that she bet I would not mind if somebody had come in and built some huge mansion on the lot. I said, "You are right, and thank you for proving my point for me" The rep. from H4H that came out said that having a house next door, even a smaller one that has no garage, is better then having an overgrown, empty lot. I told him that I had been mowing that lot every week for the last nine years and it has never been overgrown.
The whole conversation changed nothing since the damage was done, and the city had already told them they could not build anymore houses on our block. But a year or so later here is what I have next to me. Instead of a nicely cared for lot that the kids used to play football on, we have a house that looks like a double wide trailer with three satellite dishes and with weeds grown up over the windows. Somewhere in that mess is an apple tree. You can't see it because they knocked it sideways, and the weeds are as tall as it is now. I know it is there because now I have apples in my yard that I throw back over the fence.
We are NOT impressed.
I have been interested in H4H over the years, and have thought of contributing to the cause. On TV they always show the blitz. How fun it is to do something good. But they never show the aftermath of what they have done. I looked through the photos on your website and it is the same thing. The pictures of the house next to us show lots of happy people working hard. They even caught the home owner on one of the few days he came over to help. Your pictures also captured them putting up the walls wrong because nobody knew what they were doing.