Here’s a shocker. It turns out that houses built by smug celebrities (including History’s Greatest Monster, Jimmy Carter) might not be built quite as well as those built by people who actually build houses for a living.
RESIDENTS of a model housing estate bankrolled by Hollywood celebrities and hand-built by Jimmy Carter, the former US president, are complaining that it is falling apart.
Fairway Oaks was built on northern Florida wasteland by 10,000 volunteers, including Carter, in a record 17-day “blitz” organised by the charity Habitat for Humanity.
Eight years later it is better known for cockroaches, mildew and mysterious skin rashes.
A forthcoming legal battle over Fairway Oaks threatens the reputation of a charity envied for the calibre of its celebrity supporters, who range from Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt to Colin Firth, Christian Bale and Helena Bonham Carter.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED to find that people who are not known for either brains or work ethic build crappy structures.
If you want cheap housing for the masses, use what’s already available. Like shipping containers.
One Response to “Habitat for Humanity getting sued”
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Actually I think I heard of this one…
Most of the materials that HFH uses are donated, (and point of fact a majority of the non-celebraty volunteers have had training and/or are in construction :o) and several companies that donated the materials for that project (and got the tax-credits and such) have been reported as ‘missing’ and unable to be located. A large suspsion is that they “bought” the materials through non-standard suppliers and much of it was in fact illegal for use of habitable construction under United States codes.
The fact that many of the ‘doners’ were out of state companies and almost none of them are still in ‘business’ means that HFH got scammed and they will probably have to bear the brunt of the lawsuit regardless.
Unfortunatly HFH doesn’t have the “regular” staff to inspect and certify the materials they get so they generally have to rely on the donator to be of good faith.
Personally I LOVE the idea of Shipping Container housing, but as several people have noted over the years when discussions of such come up, even though the housing is usually quite well built and comfortable as well as very nice looking, there seems to be a “stigma” attached to such projects here in the United States that keeps them from breaking into the main-stream idea of low-cost housing.
On a “side-note” I hear often about Container housing through various websites, blogs, and email lists I read which are more often than not “space” and “colonization” related. The concept makes a LOT of sense since you’re going to ship supplies up IN something it would only make sense to re-use the container :o)
Randy