Habitat for Humanity Founder Calls 150,000 Homes 'A Significant Beginning'
by Jenni Parker and Allie Martin
December 16, 2003
(AgapePress) - The founder of a worldwide Christian housing ministry has been named Executive of the Year by the Nonprofit Times.Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity International, recently received the award from the business publication for his innovation and success with the housing ministry. His Americus, Georgia-based ministry has helped provide homes for more than 150,000 families in nearly 3,000 communities worldwide, but the servant-leader says he was surprised by the honor.
| | 
Millard Fuller |
Fuller's business expertise made him a millionaire by age 29, a level of success that he says nearly cost him his family. But a personal crisis prompted the entrepreneur and his wife Linda to sell all their possessions, donate the proceeds to the needy, and rededicate their lives to the service of others. In 1976 that new focus led them to found Habitat, a nonprofit organization that constructs affordable, interest-free housing for low-income families.According to Fuller, the reason Habitat has been so successful in fulfilling its mission is because the organization is based on the scriptural mandate to care for our neighbors. "It's God's idea," he says, and that is why the ministry has worked.
"The Bible tells us plainly that we should love one another," Fuller explains, "and we should express love in tangible ways. Matthew 25 clearly says 'I was a stranger and you invited me in' and 'Inasmuch as you do it to one of the least, you've done it to me.' So I think it's working because we are doing business with some fundamental biblical ideas."
Still, Habitat's founder says there is much more to be done. "More than a hundred million people in the world are absolutely homeless," he says, "and in excess of one and a half billion people in the world are living in very inadequate living conditions. So our work is really just beginning."
Habitat is dedicated to the goal of eliminating poverty housing. While some would call it a charitable organization, it is important to know that the ministry does not give houses away. Instead, it provides poor people with no-profit, no-interest mortgages, and requires the recipients to invest hundreds of hours helping with the construction of their own homes. Thus Habitat for Humanity builds not only houses, but dignity.
The ministry and its affiliates have worked with partner families in more than 3,000 communities in 92 nations to build and sell quality homes that the residents can dwell in with pride. "A hundred and fifty thousand houses is just a drop in the bucket," Fuller says, "but it's a significant beginning."
