Habitat for Humanity News

April 4, 2022

Habitat for Humanity of Puerto Rico, Partners with Albergue Olímpico de Puerto Rico

Present in photo: José A. Roque Cruz, Executive Director of Albergue Olímpico and Amanda Silva, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of Puerto Rico.

Habitat Builds Puerto Rico, our construction skills development and training program, is now entering a new phase in the municipality of Salinas to offer free, accessible training to those interested from the southern region. For this purpose, we recently signed a collaboration agreement with the Albergue Olímpico de Puerto Rico to conduct our construction skills training in its Salinas facilities.

Our 5.5-week basic construction skills development program, free of charge for eligible participants, is designed to prepare individuals to work in the growing construction industry. The first Habitat Builds Puerto Rico training cohort took place at the University of Sacred Heart in Santurce almost a year ago, in May 2021, with 135 participants having successfully completed the training.

The agreement involves the rehabilitation of a 2,724 square feet space that now will become the new Habitat Builds Puerto Rico Construction Lab, with the capacity to instruct/prepare 50 participants per training in basic construction skills covering plumbing, masonry, carpentry and electricity, among others. The program’s goal is to impact 500 individuals in the next two years.

Inauguration of ACUTAS Resource Center

We continue to move forward on Puerto Rico’s various recovery projects and working on important collaborations with other local organizations. Alongside El Enjambre, we are developing the project Adapting PASSA, a Participatory Approach for Shelter Awareness in the Puerto Rico context. Our interest is to create an interactive toolkit- soon to be available - to support community leaders, as well as to design several popular education tools. These tools and materials were developed through a learning by doing methodology, used to accompany the organization Asociación de Comunidades Unidas Tomando Acción Solidaria (ACUTAS, for its Spanish acronym) located in municipality of Toa Baja, in its process of guiding the communities of Villa Calma I, Villa Calma II and Villas del Sol in the in the development of disaster risk reduction and safe housing strategies.

This participatory process of developing a defined common project also seek to support the practices of community organization and of strengthening the liaisons among the three participating communities. The community leaders established civic engagement strategies, including the process for selecting a community committee, consisting of representatives from the three participating communities. The selected community representatives in turn developed a work plan and are in charge of its implementation. The design and execution of ACUTAS Emergency Supplies Warehouse action plan was established as a priority. In a seven-month period more than 25 community leaders worked together in the design of the plan. Toa Baja’s Ingenio neighborhood was identified as the ideal space to activate the warehouse to store food, boats and first response equipment for local emergency use. Thanks to a $25,000 donation from our partner AbbVie, ACUTAS food distribution center was opened.

Photos: We inaugurated the ACUTAS food collection center together with the mayor of Toa Baja, community leaders and representatives of El Enjambre and ACUTAS.

Home Ownership Program Announces Opportunity to Gain Access to Single-Family Homes in Puerto Rico's Southern Region

We are excited to announce that during the months of March and April we will offer online and in person orientation sessions to low- and middle-income families interested in becoming home owners of available single-family homes in the southern region of Puerto Rico..

The project, which includes home repair and selling the residential units to families in need of a home, is part of our established home ownership program, made possible by our committed donors and partners, that allows families to become home owners. Projects situated in the southern region of Puerto Rico are mainly financed by the LA Dodgers’ generous donation received after Hurricane Maria for the Puerto Rico’s reconstruction efforts and by donations of other corporate partners such as Econo and Bayer.

For more information, write to familias@habitatpr.org or contact us at 787-314-1206.

Women in Action

Photo: Our thanks and appreciation for joining the 2022 edition of our Women Build Puerto Rico program.

Women Build PR educates, trains, empowers and recruits women to acquire the construction skills, experience and professional development needed in the industry. This year we celebrated a women volunteer day at one of the homes we’re rehabilitating in the southern, coastal municipality of Salinas. Thanks to each and every volunteer for being an example of action and connecting with the work we do to ensure a better quality of life for those we serve.

OUR HEARTFELT THANKS

Thank you so very much to all our volunteers for the time and support they have given us in the past months to paint and maintain the multiple properties on which we’re working in Vega Baja, Peñuelas and Salinas. Our dedicated volunteers are a key pillar to advance our mission and offer Habitat PR’s beneficiary families safe and sound houses to call their new home.

WE ARE HABITAT

Recently, our staff also volunteered to work at various of our home improvement/repair projects. We are so grateful and feel so blessed to have such committed team members. Without a doubt, together we build homes, communities and hope.
Without a doubt, together we build homes, communities and hope.

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