Building Healthy Communities

Well, it’s the end of another December, another year.  I just recycled my 2009 desk calendar.  Honestly, I’m never quite sure what we are celebrating when one year ends and another arrives, but for 2010, I’m going to try to really take advantage of this new year as the proverbial fresh start.  I’d like to share with you a few things I am committing to do  - because they will be good for me economically, they’ll be good for the environment and they will make me feel better about myself.  By making my resolutions public, I hope to also do a better job of sticking to them.

First, I’m not going to replace that paper calendar.  I’ve like being able to glance down and see the months laid out year after year, but it really is a waste of paper, let along desk space.  Besides, I think it makes me seem old to like information on paper - only the computer will track my days from now on.

Along the same lines, no more unnecessary printing and copying.  I tend to print e-mails to have the paper as a reminder (that’s what the little flags in Outlook are for, I know!) and to print documents to revise them, and I feel guilty even as I do it.  I resolve to read and comment on documents on my computer, and to make meetings paperless as well.  Whew - I already feel better on that front.

I will remember to get the shopping bags out of the trunk of my car and actually take them into the store with me.  Why is this so hard?  On the top of the pad I use to make lists (I know, there’s that paper again, but I have to start with baby steps) I have written “REMEMBER BAGS.”  I plan to copy this as the first item of every list (now I just have to remember to take the list into the store).

I’ll reduce my phantom load.  Sounds spooky, doesn’t it?  This is the electricity used by TVs, DVD players, computers, chargers and appliances when they off, but still plugged in and drawing a small amount of electricity.  By most estimates, this standby power usage accounts for about 10% of the electricity used in a typical home.  So I’m going to unplug all my charges when they aren’t actually charging anything, and I’m going to put my electronics on a power strip and unplug it when I’m done using them.  I’ll let you know if I can see a change in my electricity bill.

To paraphrase President Carter, I’m going to wear a sweater.  I’m always cold in our house; my husband is always hot.  We are going to set the thermometer to a cooler temperature this winter.   I’ll tell him I’m doing it so he’ll be comfortable, but we’ll know the real reason!

Finally, I’m going to plant a tree.  A tree that will grow for many years and give shade and protection to our home.  This summer, I think I’ll relax under its branches and think of the money I’ve saved by sticking to my resolutions.  I hope to be congratulating myself on a job well done, but check back in the next months and I promise to tell you how I’m really doing.  Wish me luck and Happy New Year!

I’m in Phoenix at Greenbuild, the US Green Building Council’s annual mass gathering of enviro building professionals.  USGBC started out just focusing on commercial buildings - skyscrapers and fancy office buildings, but yesterday we were here talking about affordable housing.  We had about 130 representatives of nonprofit organizations, architecture firms, city housing officials and greenbuilding experts, each of whom wanted to learn more about how to create homes that are more affordable and healthier for families of modest means.  In particular, we talked about rehabbing existing homes, senior housing and transit-oriented developments, which is a fancy way of saying homes near train and subway stations and bus stops.

The speakers and panels were great and imparted a huge amount of information about existing projects, best practices and lessons learned.  In the afternoon, though, the real action began when we broke up into small working groups to discuss 9 projects from throughout the country that are still in the pre-development or design phase.  The key here was that the construction manager was able to talk to experts and peers about how to make their projects more efficient and healthier while still staying within their budget.   Because these are projects that are going to be built and that are still in a phase where changes can be made, all the participants were very engaged and excited about the conversation.  It wasn’t just a theoretical exercise.

At the end of the day, each group did a short report out.  Without exception, every project manager saw that they could build a project that would meet a national green building standard (in several cases, LEED Platinum) and stay withing their budget - WOW!  That’s a real accomplishment with 9 projects that ranged from a large Hope VI redevelopment of public housing to the renovation of a high school to be an apartment building to a Habitat house!  Even better, in just a few hours, we had project managers come to see that green wasn’t scary, overly complicated or expensive.  One even proclaimed to the crowd that he had been cynical about green building, but that he had been converted!

We’ll keep tabs on what happens as these projects come out of the ground and families actually move into them, and report back to you.  The 30,000 attendees of the Greenbuild conference are streaming into Phoenix, with meetings starting today.  On Friday, we’ll be presenting the Foundation’s Awards of Excellence for Affordable Housing Built Responsibly - check back for the winners and case studies - to an audience of almost 10,000.  But, in terms of real progress and truly making a difference, I think Greenbuild has already been a success.

Yesterday I got the chance to visit a family who has lived for about a year in a house they helped build with the Atlanta affiliate of Habitat for Humanity.  I always enjoy these opportunities to see the work of the organizations we support, so I was looking forward to the chance to talk to the parents and spend a little time with their 3 children (I’m a sucker for kids).  I didn’t expect, however, to be touched to the extent I was by their story.

Yasir and his doctors after his transplant.

The family we visited had struggled to afford a healthy, safe home to raise their two girls and infant son until they were selected by Habitat to move into a new home.  Their elation didn’t last long as the day after getting the call from Habitat, they learned that their 6 week old son, Yasir, needed a heart transplant.  His mother was hesitant to have Yasir become the first infant in Georgia to be placed on a “Berlin heart,” a temporary device to help his heart pump, until they explained that without it he would probably die before he could get a transplant.  In December of last year, Yasir got the heart transplant and after many months in the hospital, came home to a wonderful new home.

Yasir’s mother told me what a blessing their home had been as they dealt with the last year.  They are paying far less each month than they paid in rent.  Because the home is built to the green Earthcraft Home standard, their utilities bills are low and the home provides healthy air for Yasir’s weakened immune system.  Knowing all of that would have made anyone feel good about helping families like Yasir’s have a stable, safe place to live for years to come.

Watching Yasir play with his two big sisters in the front yard of their home while knowing what their family had been through during the last year, reinforced the importance of having a “home base.”  Coming home from the hospital each night, his parents didn’t have to worry about whether they were going to be able to make their rent payment or whether they would have to move again and transfer their daughters to another new school.  They didn’t have to worry about where they would bring Yasir when he finally got out of the hospital.  These thoughts just made me remember once more that it’s not about what we do, but the most important thing is who we are doing it for.

I spent the day today in a Home Depot store with an orange apron on, helping customers, sweeping the garden department and bringing carts in from the parking lot.  First,  I’ve got to say, that I am dirty and tired and my feet hurt.  Working retail is a tough job, and summer in Georgia makes it even tougher.  For any retail company,  the associates who work the sales floor every day are obviously the most important people in the company, and that is particularly true at the Home Depot where we have the best, most passionate associates bar none (sorry if I sound biased).  That of, course, is the point of having a paper pusher like me spend time pushing a broom and remembering how fortunate I am to return to my air conditioned office with a comfortable chair.

Given that the Foundation’s goal is to help people understand the long-term economic benefits of using more efficient, higher performing and durable products in their homes, today was also my chance to evangelize to consumers directly.  I planned to seize this opportunity to teach people that if they spend an extra buck today, they’ll save it many times over in reduced operating and maintenance costs.  What a great message! What an easy sell, right?

Well, it’s not really that simple or that easy - and I completely understand why.  Even with the most stereotypical example: the CFL lightbulb, the quintessential “green” product, the spiral bulb.  A CFL costs about $1.20 compared to a regular incandescent bulb, which costs about half of that.  (I feel the need to interject here that it is very unusual for a “green” product to cost twice what a traditional product costs.  In fact, we’ve found you can “green” an entire new home for well under $5,000 of added cost. ) According to the EPA’s Energy Star program, each CFL will save a homeowner about $30 over its lifetime and pay for itself in about 6 months because it uses 75 percent less energy.  On top of that, it lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb.  So spending that extra $0.60  today to save $30 overall should be a really simple, straight forward decision, right?

Well, sure, except when you go to reach for the bulb off the shelf.  It’s actually really hard to remember that long-term benefit when you have to pay for the lightbulb today because it’s… well, it’s long-term.  Especially, when you really came into the store to get just what you need to fix the leaky faucet or replace the lock or whatever else has to be done today.  If the necessities are already stretching you paycheck too far, or even if they aren’t, it’s hard to pay that incremental upfront cost now for the promise of a return in the future.  So I talked to some customers today about light bulbs and air filters and windows and how getting the right product will be a real win over its life time.  Not everyone listened.  But I did get a couple of people to buy into green.

The trend in vogue in corporate philanthropy the last few years has been about “aligning with the business” – and all the more so now, give the current economy. So, we don’t pat ourselves on the back too much about focusing The Home Depot Foundation’s efforts on housing, albeit with a twist to work toward housing that is affordable and healthy to live in over the long-term. The trouble with talking about housing, though, is that it doesn’t strike peoples’ emotions – it doesn’t tug at their heart strings like some other charitable areas do.  A house, after all, is just a building. But if a home is a place of memories and comfort, a place that provides the stability from which a family can build a successful life, why don’t we tingle at the thought of giving others that gift?

Of course, there’s the oft-cited NIMBY issues, but today’s affordable housing, frequently in mixed-income neighborhoods, isn’t remotely like the “projects” that were built in prior decades. And let’s face it, a lot of us believe if you can’t afford a decent place to live, you’ve probably done something wrong or failed to do something right somewhere along the line. Additionally, the lack of decent housing doesn’t lend itself to a quick fix, and we’re impatient - we want immediate impact. Building at scale is difficult and expensive. These efforts take time – to acquire land, assemble financing and actually build a neighborhood of homes or apartments can take years, while economic development and community revitalization can literally take decades.  At bottom, though, “affordable housing” sounds so technical, so financial, so unemotional.

Mostly, though, I think we have trouble connecting with the importance of stable, affordable housing, because we can’t really imagine what it would be like not to have the same, safe place of our own to return to day after day. We take the enjoyment of living in our own homes, as well as the economic, financial and emotional stability that comes with that, for granted. We don’t really realize what great gifts homes can offer – the gift of stability from living in the same community from which employment and educational prospects can develop; the gift of health and safety from living in a home where the air and water are clean and there are parks and places to play nearby; the gift of financial security from knowing you’ll be able to pay the rent and the power bill, not only this month, but next month too; and the gift of belonging from which dignity and pride can grow. I don’t know about you, but when you look at it like that, it’s something everyone should feel very fortunate to achieve, and it’s enough to give me goosebumps.

It’s an exciting day today as The Home Depot Foundation and Habitat for Humanity International announce the national expansion of our $30-million, 5-year partnership, Partners in Sustainable Building. You can read the press release, but through the program, we are bringing grants and resources to help Habitat affiliates build at least 5,000 homes that meet Energy Star guidelines or another nationally recognized green building standard. With the first round of annual grants, more than 120 Habitat affiliates in 45 states will build almost 1,500 sustainable homes.

This is a significant program for the Foundation, among our very largest, and several people have asked why we are launching the program now, in this economy and with this housing market. I have to admit the question caught me off guard at first, because this seems like the most logical time to launch – and the time that this kind of program is needed most.

Through this partnership, we are focused on bringing the practical benefits of green building to families of modest incomes. While this may sound like just another “green” announcement, we are actually concentrating on the practical, pocketbook benefits of good building. The fact that some of these things are good for the environment is an added bonus, but not our first concern. We are much more interested in seeing energy bills being reduced by up to 50%; water bills going down by a third; and maintenance costs remaining low because durable materials are being used in the first instance – and all of it making economic sense from day 1.

So in answer to the question “Why now?” the answer has to be “How could we not!” The current economic and housing issues we are facing just confirm our belief that if we have helped a family move into a home that they can’t afford to live in over the long term, we really haven’t helped at all.