Watch the video, read the article and be inspired.
Builders of Hope is a remarkable North Carolina-based charity that saves older houses from demolition (frequently moving them to a new site), remodels them to green standards, and then sells them at below-market rates to qualifying buyers.
Even better, although the organization benefits from a lot of volunteer help, they also make a concerted effort to hire homeless and other people in transitional situations for their moving and construction work.
Working with, rather than tearing down, older buildings helps save the historic fabric of a community while also taking advantage of the energy and resources embedded in the original construction. In some cases, they are able to save, rehab and green the houses on their original sites, while in other cases the homes must be moved.
Wendy Koch profiled the organization in USA Today:
“Murray, a high-energy mother of four, talks fast as she drives around Raleigh, explaining how her group has created two eco-friendly enclaves in what were once blighted areas of town.
"’You can create a neighborhood just like that,’ she says, snapping her fingers. She says moving a house doesn't take long, and once it's placed on a new foundation, her workers can rebuild it within three months for $89 a square foot.
“Her group, which now employs 50 people — some of them ex-offenders learning construction — also rehabs homes onsite. It often strips them to the studs, adding lots of insulation, high-performance windows as well as efficient appliances, lighting and HVAC heating/cooling equipment. Monthly utility bills average less than $50.
“Builders of Hope has already rebuilt 62 single-family homes and 63 apartments in four North Carolina towns and has acquired lots for dozens of other houses, Murray says. It has received about $8 million in federal funds for land acquisition and gets bank loans as well as private donations for the construction.
“Murray expects her group will have diverted 11 million pounds of debris from landfills by the end of this year.”
Wanda Urbanska wrote earlier this year in Natural Home:
“Americans demolish some 250,000 homes annually, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and many of them are more solidly built than the new structures that replace them. Though in recent years developers have increased efforts to salvage reusable items such as bathtubs, light fixtures and mantels, mountains of demolition debris still clog our nation’s landfills.
“Nancy Murray, a former advertising executive in Raleigh, North Carolina, saw gold where others saw garbage. Why not, she wondered, turn our inventory of sturdy but out-of-style housing stock into affordable housing? In late 2006, Murray founded Builders of Hope, a nonprofit organization that saves tear-down homes from the wrecking ball, rehabilitates them with health- and environmentally conscious materials, and either moves the rescued houses into new clustered communities or leaves them as anchors to help revitalize existing neighborhoods.”
Source Article:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/saving_and_greening_buildings.html
Builders of Hope Website:
http://www.buildersofhope.org/
0 comments:
Post a Comment