Monday`s HabiChat - Habitat for Humanity

HabiChats
Today is World
Habitat Day!
ISSUE NO. 1 | MONDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2013
by Matthew Dunbar
•••
The United Nations General
Assembly has declared the first
Monday in October to be World
Habitat Day. This is a time to
recognize the basic need for
adequate shelter in a world where
it is lacking for so many. As you
raise your screw-guns and
hammer your nails today we ask
that you consider raising your
2013 CWP Opening Ceremony
pens and hammer your keyboards
for the cause of universal decent
The 2013 Jimmy & Rosalynn
zoo’s sea lions opened a night of
housing. We invite you to join
Habitat in drawing attention to
Carter Works Project Opening
New York style food, beverages, and
Ceremony took place on Sunday,
entertainment. We hope everyone
October 6 at the Central Park Zoo!
enjoyed this celebration as we
Volunteers and guests enjoyed a
kicked off the start of a momentous
night dedicated to all things New
week and celebrated 30 years of
York. A special performance by the
building with the Carters!
the continuing need for affordable
housing and inspiring action to
address the need by signing the
World Habitat Day Pledge to End
Poverty Housing at
http://bit.ly/housingpledge
Where’s
Jimmy?
Oakland,
California
“Why I think
Habitat for
Humanity is
Important to NYC”
WELCOME TO NEW YORK CITY!
On behalf of the partner families of the
affiliate, the board of directors, local
volunteers, and staff, I want to express
our collective gratitude to you for
working with us this week.
by Elliot Kwon
Junior at Columbia University
New York, NY
•••
The “House” encapsulates, in its
fundamental level, our ambivalent
existence. On one hand, it is a domus,
a piece of land and air defined by
walls, floor, and roof that we may claim
as our own domain, in which we are
free to shape a small portion of this
earth to suit our personal needs. In
direct opposition to this concept of
domus—a symbol of agency and
power—is the House as a shelter, a
shield that protects our frail selves
from the contingencies and
tempestuousness of the world that lies
beyond this personal refuge. The
House, therefore, is in its essence the
ultimate abstraction of both our desire
to control and our fear of being
controlled.
Currently, about 46,000 New Yorkers
spend their nights in the shelter system,
with thousands more estimated to be
taking refuge in public, exposed areas.
Your hard work on the build site will
make a dramatic difference in the lives of
fi f t e e n f a m i l i e s a n d i n s p i re t h e
community as a whole.
Neil Hetherington Habitat NYC CEO
and Habitat NYC Staff
With Section 8 housing no longer an
option for new applicants and an almost
decade-long waiting list for NYCHA
public housing, the need for the House
is pressing. Shelter, at best, protects us
from the dangers of the perceived
“outside,” but without its complement,
it divulges solely our weakness and
fragile frame. Habitat for Humanity
offers this comprehensive solution so
desperately needed in this costly,
crowded city. Through building the
House, we not only build the domus and
shelter, but empower and protect these
resilient New Yorkers through homeownership. We build, not only because
humanity needs its habitat, but habitat is
the House that encapsulates humanity.
Nowhere else is this more evident than
New York City.
HOMEOWNER PROFILE: THE TSOU FAMILY
Billy Tsou and his wife Anna will
FAST FACTS
be purchasing one of the Queens
homes completed during the
Current Apartmen
t
Carter Work Project! Billy has
Kips Bay Neighborh
ood, Manhattan
worked as an AV Technician
560 Sq. Ft., 1 Bedroo
since 2007 and his wife Anna
m Apartment
takes care of their 9-year old
New Habitat Home!
daughter Maya and their
Rosedale Neighborh
newborn son Layne.
ood,
Photo by William Neumann
Photography
3 Bedroom, single-fa
Queens
mily house
with a garage and ba
ckyard!
Girl’s dream of a new home - and a backyard - comes true
in the living room since Maya was
about 3 so that she could have her
own space.
“It’s tiny,” Billy says, “but we make do
with what we’ve got.”
by Soyia Ellison
•••
NEW YORK CITY — Nine-year-old
Maya Tsou has big ideas for her
family’s new Habitat home in
Queens.
“I’m very excited to have my own
room,” she says. “I’ve got my
decoration plans all figured out. I
think I’m going to have maybe four
parts — maybe a little reading zone
on one side with a little comfortable
chair and a bookshelf, and on the
other side can be a bed. And the
next parts could be a science lab or
an art studio.”
Their new three-bedroom home,
which is being rehabilitated during
October’s Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter
Work Project, will be nearly three
times the size of the apartment. The
Tsous are excited about the extra
space. But they’re even more excited
about being homeowners.
“Homeownership in New York City,”
Billy says, shaking his head. “It is
unreachable by most people.”
Billy immigrated to America from
Taiwan when he was 13; Anna moved
here from Russia when she was 12.
He bounced between relatives in
Long Island and Queens, while she
and her mother settled in the
apartment where the couple still lives
today.
“Oh,” she adds a moment later, “I
forgot to say. I’m also very excited
about the backyard.”
A backyard means that she and her
beloved beagle, Snoopy, will finally
get to live under the same roof.
At the moment, Maya and her
parents, Billy and Anna, live in a
rent-controlled apartment building
in Midtown that doesn’t allow pets.
Snoopy lives with Anna’s mother,
about two blocks away.
“We have no space for the dog, and
now we have a baby,” Maya says. “It’s
going to be nice when we live
together.”
The baby she’s referring to is her
brother, Layne, who was born in July.
Since his arrival, Maya has had to
sleep on the pullout sofa in the living
room with her dad, while her mother
and little brother try to get some
sleep in the apartment’s single
bedroom.
The Tsous’ entire place is only 560
square feet. Billy and Anna have slept
who works for Habitat for Humanity
New York City. His friend told him
about Habitat’s no-interest loans
and sweat-equity program, and Billy
went to an informational meeting.
Now he’s just months away from
fulfilling a dream that once seemed
impossible.
Billy is using his remaining vacation
days of 2013 so that he can be work
on his home during the Carter Work
Project.
“I’ve been obsessively watching
those DIY networks,” he confesses,
“just to get an idea of what’s to
come.”
Both Billy and Anna are dreaming up
projects for their backyard.
“A backyard is a total dream,” says
Anna. “It’s great. We’ll have our dog
there running around …”
“Yeah,” Billy chimes in. “And I sort of
have a wannabe green thumb. I love
growing things. Our windowsill is
kind of messy with my plants right
now. … We want to get a little jungle
gym for the kids. The area doesn’t
really have any playgrounds.”
“I’m not really the playground type,”
Maya reassures him.
“I married into the apartment,” jokes
Billy.
They met while studying at the
Institute of Audio Research and
married in 2005. Anna stays home
with the kids while Billy works as an
audio-visual engineer in Morgan
Stanley’s multimedia department.
In another city, they might be able to
a!ord a home. But not in New York.
It’s really hard to be able save up,
because everything in New York is so
pricey,” says Anna. “We were kind of
stuck.”
Then Billy learned about Habitat
during a conversation with a friend
After six years on a sofa, the adult
Tsous are looking forward to
sleeping in a real bed in their own
room. But they’re most excited about
what the home will o!er their
children.
“I want Maya to have space for her
books,” Anna says, “where she could
do her homework uninterrupted.”
Maya recently started fourth grade,
and she loves to play piano and read
chapter books. When she grows up,
she says, she wants to be a
veterinarian and a nature
conservationist.
What better place for a budding
nature conservationist to start than
in her own backyard?
Special Thanks!
Fea
ture
d
Plat
inum
Spo
nso
r!
Citi
The Dow Chemical
Company
Hudson Yards
JP Morgan Chase
Foundation
Bank of America
Capital One Bank
Wells Fargo
EXIT Realty Corp.
International
Lowe’s
PepsiCo Foundation
Valspar
Elizabeth Anton
Habitat for Humanity
Fund
Nissan Americas
W.P. Carey Inc.
Marsh & McLennan
Companies
The Proctor and
Gamble Company
Staten Island
Academy
The Door Restaurant
Roy Wilkins
Recreational Center
Staten Island
Academy Families
Hillside Gourmet
Bagels
Dominick’s
Not Just Bagels
Nucci’s South Staten
Island
Island Charger
Carroll’s Florist
Bozo’s Army Navy
Store
Red Wing Shoes
Carhartt
Fast Signs Staten
Island
PK’s Restaurant
Staten Island
The Staten Island
Foundation
Rotary Club of Staten
Island
Gerald Peter Gold
Mine Jewelers
NY Dental Laboratory
Group
Staten Island Mall
Bay Ridge Windows
and Doors Brooklyn
Statewide Oil and
Heat
Barone Steel
Fabricators
St. Ignatius Loyola
Interior Metals
NB Enterprise
NY Steps 2 Success
Paul Mitchell
Blue Thong Society
Montalbano’s of
Rosebank
A Precious Party
Rental
A F Bennett
Carroll’s Florist
Staten Island
The Birch Walthen
Lenox School
Michael J. Petrides
School
PS 1 Manhattan
Epiphany Lutheran
Church
ASHRAE NYC
Chapter
Orion Mechanical
Systems
Gil-Bar Industries
Dolphin Equipment
Celtic Sheet Metal
JB&B
United Air
Conditioning
Golden Crust
Volunteer Profile
Name: Alyce Matsumoto
From: New York, NY
Past Carter Projects: 2013 will be
Alyce’s 10th Carter Build! She has built in
Gulf Coast ’08 Los Angeles ’07
Michigan ’05, ! Alabama / Georgia
! !
!
’03
Favorite CWP Build: The 2005
Detroit, Michigan Build was her favorite.
She especially loved the food options!
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