By Collin Quigley, AmeriCorps Member & Volunteer Coordinator
Last week, a group of us from Habitat MontDelco attended Habitat for Humanity International’s annual “Habitat on the Hill” conference.
“Habitat on the Hill” normally includes hundreds of members of the wider Habitat family gathering in the capitol for days of learning, reflection, and advocacy. The conference follows a “teach-in” model, where we learn more about legislation needed to improve our communities, before advocating these legislative advancements to our elected representatives on Capitol Hill. This year with the ongoing pandemic, we had to call an audible, moving to advocate for affordable housing from our own homes.
In our meetings with our Congresswomen and Senators, we lifted up the housing needs of the families we serve. While past pandemic relief packages have offered some mortgage assistance funding, Habitat MontDelco opened our own mortgage relief program for our homeowners. The pandemic has also challenged our elderly, disabled, and veteran homeowners in our communities from accessing affordable home repairs. We encouraged our elected representatives to sponsor legislation designed to make it easier for families in Montgomery and Delaware Counties to purchase and maintain their homes.
The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said that you “fight for things you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” Fighting for the things that matter and doing it in a unifying way is what Habitat is all about. At the heart of Habitat for Humanity’s mission is our belief that building a world where everyone has a decent place to live takes all of us. Meaningful change requires all of us sweating together, recognizing our inherent equality as human beings and committing ourselves to removing the vast inequalities in our world. Realizing our mission takes buy-in from all of us – regardless of who we are and where we come from. That was the message we took to the Hill and will continue to fight for in our communities.
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