Q&A with Beth Folz, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Evansville
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Habitat for Humanity of Evansville marked its 40th anniversary in April. The first Habitat affiliate in Indiana, founded in 1984, will dedicate its 600th home in the Tepe Park neighborhood on Wednesday.
Executive director Beth Folz, who will celebrate 10 years in her role in July, spoke to Inside INdiana Business about the not-for-profit housing organization’s history and the desire to serve more families in the future.
Tell me about the history of Habitat for Humanity of Evansville.
When Habitat was founded in Americus, Georgia, two people from Evansville were among the 26 that gathered there. That was in 1976. Habitat has now grown to serve 70 countries around the world and more than 46 million people.
Jim Perrigo owned a masonry business and a brickyard here. Reverend Jim Prickett was a pastor. And so when Millard Fuller founded Habitat, they were there and brought that enthusiasm and that spirit back to Evansville. We started in 1984 as basically an all-volunteer organization.
What [Perrigo and Prickett] were really doing was creating a movement that cared about housing and people who needed housing and the decaying conditions that people were living in. That spoke to a lot of the faith communities that initially supported Habitat, but then that grew into businesses and others supporting Habitat.
Early on, we did three blitz builds. In 1992, they built 21 homes in one week. And then in 1995, they were going to build 25 homes in a week. Fuller said, “We’ve already built 25. You need to build 26.” So they built 26 homes in one week. And then in 2000, they built 25 homes in a week. It was those blitz builds that got the community behind Habitat. And we’ve never looked back from those we have built.
We had a tornado in Evansville in 2005, and we built a 55-house subdivision. Forty of the people who were served were survivors of that tornado. It took out a mobile home park in our area. A lot of those tornado survivors didn’t have any place to go, so we got to work building that subdivision. After that, we switched to a neighborhood focus where we’re building in concentration in neighborhoods in need of revitalization.
We go into a neighborhood that’s typically in distress census tracts where there are high poverty rates. We see our work as not only serving the families in need of housing but also in lifting community and neighborhoods up. We work in conjunction with several nonprofits that are doing community development work and resident engagement.
Right now we’re building in the Tepe Park neighborhood, but we’ve built in Jacobsville and Glenwood, which are considered low-income census tracts. In Glenwood, we’ve seen the poverty rate go down in that neighborhood. We think that is, at least in part, due to our work there.
What about your history with Habitat for Humanity of Evansville?
Prickett was the pastor of my church when I was in high school, right before he left to work for Habitat. He spoke about this organization that was a hand-up and an empowerment model instead of a handout model. And that resonated with me, spoke to my heart.
When I was in my teenage years, I had no idea I would eventually end up working for the organization. But in my probably late twenties, I started volunteering on job sites. One was with my stepson. I volunteered on a job site when he was doing his community hours for high school. I’ve also worked on job sites with my son and daughter.
I was an attorney for 25 years, so once I paid off my house, I said, “I’m going to start giving back.” And I volunteered in the Habitat office on Friday mornings, just answering phones and helping with mailings, whatever I could do.
I served on several committees within the organization, eventually became a board member and when the executive director spot opened up, I say I found my calling when I came to work for Habitat. It’s been a good ride and definitely something that was a positive in my life.
How has Habitat for Humanity of Evansville changed over the years?
During my tenure, we’ve had a more intense focus on homeowner education. We have several required classes. One of those is the six-month money management class where they’re learning financial literacy skills and not only learning those but putting those into practice. They have a class once a month for six months, and then they’re paired with a financial professional who helps them apply what they learned in class to their particular circumstances.
We’ve also become more focused on the energy efficiency of our houses when we build them. We’ve always built a solid home. But being more cognizant of energy efficiencies and doing some things that help keep utility costs as low as possible has been a driving factor, too.
While we’re building [in a neighborhood], we see the neighbors starting to take better care of their own properties. We see dilapidated and abandoned houses coming down and making way for more new houses … We see that we’re having a bigger impact in the neighborhoods.
Our goal is to increase the number of families we serve. The average over our affiliate’s lifetime is 15 homes per year. But in the last five years, we’ve built at least 20 homes a year. One year, we built 27. So that push to serve more families has been at our forefront because the need is great.
What are some of the challenges Habitat for Humanity of Evansville has faced?
Fundraising is always a challenge. It all starts with money. We have to have money to build. So as we strive to serve more families, we need more fundraising dollars to come in to serve that. Particularly after the pandemic, we saw our cost to build increase pretty dramatically.
In 2018, it was costing us about $100,000 to build a three-bedroom home. Last fiscal year, that jumped up to $150,000. So within five years, we had a 50% increase in our cost to build. We build with volunteer labor, so they save us about $18,000 per house. While we strive to keep the costs as low as possible, the current economy and the supply chain shortages that we faced after the pandemic have just driven those costs up.
The need for our services has increased over time, too, particularly in the last couple of years, I’ve noticed an increase in qualified applicants. We have a little over 900 people apply for our program each year, and we’re building currently 20 to 25 houses a year. So you can see there’s a gap of people who may qualify for our program that something slight is holding them back.
What are the requirements for Habitat homes, and how are owners impacted?
The applicants have to meet three requirements. One, they have to have a need for housing. Two, they have to have the ability to pay their mortgage payment, which is a 0% interest loan, for typically 25 years. Sometimes it stretches to 30 years. Three, they have to have a willingness to partner with us by performing 300 sweat equity hours.
Need can be anything from my electrical system doesn’t work in my house, and my landlord won’t fix it, or the weatherization of my home, my utility bills are so high because I have a poorly insulated home. And it may be that I’m paying more than 30% of my income in housing costs. That cost burden can qualify as need.
Our families have to have steady income for at least two years prior to their closing. That could be from employment or it could be from a disability income or something like that. Our current payment for a three-bedroom home is around $600 a month. That’s about half of what the rental rate is for a three-bedroom apartment in our area.
The last component of willingness to partner with us by performing the 300 sweat equity hours. That’s pretty unique to Habitat. Those 300 hours consist of first helping others build their homes. When they reach 150 sweat equity hours, then we start building their home and they’re helping to build their own home. It’s also taking all of these classes that we offer to prepare them for homeownership. They have at least 25 hours of classroom time.
Children of our Habitat homeowners graduate at a higher rate than the public school system. You’re having major educational impacts on the kids that are growing up in those homes. Our homeowners have higher educational achievements. They may go back to school and get a degree after moving into their Habitat home. They get better jobs. We know they rely less on public assistance once they’re in their Habitat home and have better financial skills.
Habitat homeowners in Evansville have paid over $2 million in property taxes in the last 40 years. We’re contributing to the tax base and the attractiveness of the neighborhoods. Better health outcomes, also. A study has shown because they’re in newer homes, they’re not exposed to lead paint, and they have less asthma and breathing problems.
Tell me about the 600th home on Covert Avenue in Tepe Park.
Initially, we were going to build 24 homes in Tepe Park, but we’ve been able to pick up some additional lots there. It’s an amazing accomplishment for an affiliate, particularly a Habitat affiliate of our size. There have only been 25 other Habitat affiliates that have reached that benchmark in the Habitat world.
That home is meant to highlight the community support of our work, but also this disparity that exists between white homeownership rates and Black homeownership rates. We’re calling it “Bridging the Gap: Building the Beloved Community” to highlight that we need to increase the number of homeowners in general, but particularly minority homeownership.
What else is new with Habitat for Humanity of Evansville in 2024?
We’re looking to double our capacity over the next five years, working our way up to serving 40 families a year because the need is so great.
The other thing that we’re super excited about is starting the Habitat Volunteer Center. We hope to kick that off by the end of the year where we will do component building. We’ll build walls within a warehouse, and then those walls will be moved out to a job site to raise those walls and finish the building process. One of the things that’s so exciting is that the weather will no longer be a factor in our building.
Why should people get involved with Habitat for Humanity of Evansville, and how can they do so?
It’s just fun. When you’re out on a build site, hammering with people and getting to know each other and working alongside the homeowner, there is just something to be said about working together for the common good. Building a relationship with that family who is going to be living in that home and celebrating what they have overcome and what they’re achieving.
Our Habitat homeowners are the heroes of their story. Some people have misconceptions about who’s getting Habitat homes. These are hard-working people. They’re people who are working in our nursing homes, taking care of our older citizens. They’re the teller at the bank. They’re the essential workers.
It’s amazing to see the perseverance and determination of these families. Who doesn’t want to help somebody who is working to help themselves? You won’t meet better people than volunteers for Habitat. They’re just good as gold people.
We have both hammer volunteer opportunities and no hammer volunteer opportunities. You don’t have to have any particular skill. You just have to have a willing heart and willing hands. We’ll teach you what you need to know.