While much of world and local news this year has focused on destruction, Staff Research Assistant Mark Grosch has volunteered a considerable amount of his time and energy towards construction. Mark was nominated as the President of the Santa Barbara chapter of Habitat For Humanity in October 2004, and one of Mark’s first duties as President was to officiate at the chapter’s first ground breaking in early November. The event was reported on local television and in the local press.
Excerpts from Mark’s speech: …When I think about this project, a certain four-letter word comes to mind: “can’t.” As we began this project, many people we told about it said, “It can’t be done; you can’t build owner-occupied affordable housing at that income level in Santa Barbara.”And we said, “We can.”And they said, “You can’t get a suitable parcel of land on which to build a house.”And we said, “We can.”And they said, “You can’t get it passed through the Housing Authority, the Planning Commission, and the Architectural Board of Review.”And we said, “We can, and we did, and we will.”
And two years later, we find that they were correct: we are not building a house like that at all—we’re building three!…
The road to social justice is not always paved and straight and level. It was not the dream of (Habitat’s founder) that Habitat would only build houses where it was easy and land was cheap. It was his dream that Habitat would build houses where there was a need for shelter…(He) understood that creating an organization such as Habitat from a foundation of faith meant that it must follow the dictates of that faith…The process of ending poverty housing worldwide is a journey with many steps, and not without some sweat. We welcome you as we carry forward this journey in Santa Barbara and hope that those of you gathered here will continue to travel with us…
