A Success Story

As the region talks about new ways to address the growing affordable housing crisis, quietly, in the background, one organization is doing something about it, one house at a time.

Habitat for Humanity held a “wall raise” ceremony last week on Thomas Avenue in East Hampton Town. Appropriately, a large group of volunteers were there to get the task done. Volunteers are, in fact, at the heart of the Habitat model, have been since its founding in Georgia in 1976. Also there was Matt Charron, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and single father who will share the two-story, four-bedroom house just north of Amagansett’s business district with his teenage son, Jackson, a sophomore at East Hampton High School. “I’m excited that we get to stay here in East Hampton, which has been such a struggle,” said Charron, who has been sharing a one-bedroom apartment with his son.

This 236th house built by Habitat for Humanity on Long Island is the first in East Hampton Town specifically for a military veteran. Team Rubicon, a veterans’ support group, was a partner in the project, and it got support from PSEG Long Island, Ben Krupinski Builder, Quackenbush Cesspools and several other contractors. It is, as always, the ultimate team effort.

And that team includes Charron, who contributed 300 hours of his own time on other Habitat projects in recent months. He will take out a 30-year mortgage to pay for the construction costs, which are made more affordable by the Habitat effort.

There are lessons to be learned from the Habitat model. Partnerships are more powerful than individual efforts. Investing “sweat equity” is important for participants to truly feel like they’ve earned the benefit, and to keep the effort “paying it forward.” One house won’t fix the problem — but it fixed it for this one family of two, offering stability to a young high school student and reasonable comfort for both him and his father, at a price they can afford. With small steps like this, you can eventually cover a lot of ground.

Habitat for Humanity deserves recognition for all it has done, both here and elsewhere, to make an enormous difference in so many lives. But it also offers important advice as South Fork officials try to address a housing crisis that is steadily taking a toll on quality of life. You can’t fix everything all at once — but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to fix things for Matt Charron, or the next person in line. These are success stories, individual ones. Let’s just make more of them.