Fuller, M. with Scott, D. (1986). No more shacks!: The daring vision of habitat for humanity. Waco, TX: Word Books.

OVERVIEW

The striking contrast between rich and poor is increasingly dramatized to all honest travelers and observers of the media. Food, clothing, and shelter remain the essentials of human life—and deprivation of these basic rights (along with medical care, education, and employment) dehumanizes families and threatens the future of all.

Millard Fuller and Habitat for Humanity are dedicated to ridding the world of poverty, inadequate housing, and indignity. Fuller writes:

The simplest answer I can offer to the question of how to eliminate poverty housing in the world is to make it a matter of conscience. We must do whatever is necessary to cause people to think and act to bring adequate shelter to everyone. And we’ll do this through a spirit of PARTNERSHIP.

First, we’re in partnership with God...this is God’s movement, and there’s nothing that can stop it.

Second, we’re in partnership with each other. One of the most exciting features of Habitat...is that people who don’t normally work together at all are coming together everywhere to work in this cause...affluent and poor; high school students and senior citizens, conservatives and liberals, Roman Catholics and Protestants, and every radical and ethnic group I can think of...

We might disagree on how to preach or how to dress or how to baptize or how to take communion...But we can all pick up a hammer and, sharing the love of Christ, we can begin to drive nails. Thank God we can agree on a nail!

With this dual partnership as our foundation we are going to arouse the conscience of individuals and organizations around the world, challenging them to join in this cause. And together, we are going to get rid of the shacks. ALL OF THEM!

Chapter four quotes the United Nations Center for Human Settlements’ estimation of between one and one-and-a-half billion people—one quarter of the earth’s population—as lacking in adequate shelter.

Of these, one hundred million have no housing whatever. In many cities of the third world, half of the people live in slum and squatter settlements. In some cities, over three-fourths of the population live in such conditions. In Latin America alone, it is estimated that twenty million children live in the streets, with no place to call home. (p. 33)

In New York City, where the Habitat for Humanity project on the Lower East Side has renovated a six-story for nineteen low-income families, an estimated thirty to sixty thousand people are homeless, with two hundred and fifty thousand more on the brink of homelessness...In Boston...more than five thousand people are homeless...On the west coast, in Los Angeles, more than thirty thousand people are homeless, Thousands more are crowded into inadequate shelter. (p. 34)

The United Nations estimates that the world’s population will increase by one-and-a-half billion by the year 2000. Furthermore, it is predicted that 80% of these newcomers will be city dwellers. (p. 35)

Unfortunately, (Habitat for Humanity’s) effort (to provide decent housing for all) is confronted by two major obstacles. One is an uncaring attitude on the part of people who could help. The other is the population explosion. (p. 37)

The basic idea of Habitat is to provide a partnership of resources and labor so that the poor can help build their own housing—pay for ownership without interest—and contribute to the housing of others in need.

Seven appendices reveal a practical world strategy and operation.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION

1. Do you agree with Millard Fuller when he says, "All of God’s people should have at least a simple, decent, place to live?" Is simple, decent living space a basic human need or right? If you agree, then what should be done?
2. If there are enough ideas and material resources to solve such problems in our world, why isn’t there more progress?
3. How can churches, individuals, and governments begin to solve this problem?
4. What affects you most about Habitat for Humanity?

IMPLICATION

Those with conscience enough to cringe at the indignity of the impoverished, realize that each human family ought to have a decent place to live and a chance to earn a survival income. This book is about what ought to be done, can be done, and is being done.

Dean Borgman cCYS

The Dougy Center, a Portland, Oregon program that helps young people deal with the loss of loved ones.

OVERVIEW

In the Volcano Room, padded floor to ceiling and packed with fluffy toys, an 8-year-old boy flailed wildly at another child with a tubular pillow, bopping him again and again.

Finally, the boy collapsed on the floor, sweaty and breathless after another exercise in venting his anger over the way his stepfather took his mother away.

‘He shot her in the back,’ the boy said. ‘She was alive a little bit, and then she died of a heart attack.’

Beverly Chappell, a Oregon Health Sciences University nurse, developed the Dougy Center after observing a dying boy comfort other sick children as he played with them. Chappell realized that kids talking to each other helped tranquilize the pain of their respective losses.

PROGRAM GOALS

To help children help each other work through losing a dear friend or relative.

PROGRAM METHODS

The Dougy Center uses play, crafts, and stories to facilitate kids’ expressions of emotions about the death that has occurred in their lives. A "talk circle" allows children to speak about their feelings. The "Art Room" is the place where kids make crafts and memory boxes. At the "Splatter Wall," young people vent their anger through splashing paint against the wall. Young people can hit punching bags or stuffed dolls in the "Volcano Room." Other rooms include a playroom filled with a sandbox and a room decked with a dollhouse, "where kids act out their family dynamics using action figures." A "Memory Wall" paints pictures of progress made by children during their stay at the Dougy Center.

PROGRAM OPERATION

The original Portland, Oregon Dougy Center opened in 1983 and has served more than 10,000 children ages 3-19. The center has also organized over 80 similar programs throughout the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Japan, and Australia. At any time, approximately 275 children are involved in Portland’s Dougy Center support groups. Their visits last between six months to three years.

PROGRAM TESTIMONIES

When children arrive at the center, they typically "paint menacing clouds. Colors are dark. Graveyards abound, and flowers cry black tears. Later paintings sport bright rainbows and happier memories: the cookies she used to bake, the car he used to drive."

According to Donna Schuurman, the center’s executive director, " ‘Our first batches of kids are now in college. What they tell us they take from here is that it’s OK to find people to talk with, safe people, and that really does help.’ "

Typo Station, Australia.

The following information is taken from their website: www.typostation.org.au

BACKGROUND

• "If we as a community don't start believing in our young people, how can we ever expect them to start believing in themselves?" Matt Pfahlert, Founder Typo Station.

Young males are increasingly falling through the cracks in society. Evidence points to the effects of changing gender roles, lower literacy levels and different learning styles, family breakdown, lack of positive male role models and changes to the work place, as some of the causes behind the significantly higher rates of unemployment, risk-taking behaviours, self-harm, and suicide, among young men.  Research has found that young people are four times more likely to participate in self-harm, high risk and criminal activities when they’ve fallen out of school and home. Typo Station works with young men aged between 14 and 17 years while they still have a connection to an education pathway and some stability and support in their home life.

PURPOSE
Typo Station is an independent non-profit organisation operating an early intervention, life-skills, alternate education and mentoring program for troubled and vulnerable young men aged 14-17, who are experiencing significant difficulties at home, school and in their community.

Typo Station works with up to 150 young men each year from throughout Victoria and southern NSW. Their program begins with an initial five-week residential experience on their bush property in NE Victoria, with mentoring support and follow up programs provided over the next two years. They aim to help struggling young men build resilience and life skills; helping them to find a more positive future and build better relationships at home, school and in their local community.

GOALS
Typo Station's vision is for all young people to experience the growth opportunities necessary for a fulfilled and successful adulthood. An independent not-for-profit organisation, Typo Station is committed to creating sustainable community based opportunities that assist 14-17 year old males who are experiencing difficulties at school and home to become successful adults, and through a unique residential program, to build the resilience and life skills necessary for a positive future.

ACTIVITIES

Initial 5-week residential experience

Basic Skills Week:
An introductory week at Typo Station, which gives young men an experience of each of the program components, including an over-night hike, pioneer skills workshops, and being responsible for daily chores.

The Expedition: 
A rigorous nine day bush hike in the Victorian Alpine National Park or Wyperfield National Park. The hike is challenging and is an enormous achievement for participants. It provides young men with a number of important skills including bush knowledge i.e. navigation, teamwork, and leadership.

Station Life: 
A week in which young men live a simple, pioneer style life, work to a daily routine, and build practical skills in blacksmith and joinery workshops. This week aims to build a sense of responsibility for self and others, develop living skills, and create routines for ongoing motivation and activity after Typo Station.

Follow Up Programs

3-5 day experiences that are designed to build on the skills developed in the initial five-week residential experience at Typo Station, and to provide young people with further opportunities for goal-setting and reflection, leadership and vocational development. Follow-up programs include Market Enterprise, Work Enterprise, Community Enterprise, and Bush Enterprise.

2-Year Mentoring Program

At the completion of the residential experience, each young man is paired with a staff member, who mentors the young person on a monthly basis for the next two years. The mentoring program extends support to the young man throughout all stages of the Typo Station journey, builds on relationships developed during the program, and helps him to stay focused on his personal
and vocational goals for the whole two years and beyond.

OPERATIONS
Typo Station works alongside families, schools and youth agencies, with an estimated 80% success rate. Their programs are not government funded but are generously supported by the wider community. Typo Station operates under a board, executive director and a full-time staff of twelve. They also include in their community of staff the many volunteers and other supporters of Typo Station who give their time and energy to assist in all projects and who share the vision of Typo Station.  Their team members hold qualifications in youth work, social work, outdoor education, family therapy and teaching.

OPINIONS
Since its inception in 1993, Typo Station has worked alongside over 100 schools across Victoria in addressing some of the issues facing young men. Ted Brierley, the President of the Australian Association of School Principals, described the Typo Station program as “instrumental in providing successful pathways to many troubled young people in Victoria. School principals report to me the outstanding work done at Typo Station

. Without this program many more young people would be left stranded in a hostile community without options and without hope” (2003)

“Before I went to Typo I would stay home and bludge, now I want to work. It’s a place where you can feel secure there’s no big threats, it’s a peaceful place…This place helped me over these little mountains of mine. Without it I wouldn’t be anywhere – on the path I was headed, I’d probably be six feet under”.  (Participant)

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION & DISCUSSION

1. What is your personal interest in this kind of program?

2. How do you assess the possibility of short-term success, long-term sustainability, or possible failure of this program?

3. Do you think a program like this would succeed in your area or situation?  Why or why not?

4. How would you use the ideas here to build a program in your situation?

IMPLICATIONS

1. Programs like this are so needed for troubled youth, especially boys, as it takes them out of their environment and can completely alter their perspective on life, on themselves and others.
2. This particular program is rightly incorporating effective follow-up of students which is often so lacking in programs. Also, the need to teach job and life skills is essential to youths who haven't had a structured environment where these skills are modeled.

cCYS