Helping Habitat for Humanity Change Lives

Sixty-six homes.

That’s the number of homes Habitat for Humanity of Greater Birmingham has built for UAB employees and students over the last decade. During that same time, Habitat Birmingham partnered with UAB volunteers to build seven homes.

Habitat Birmingham builds and repairs homes in partnership with low-to-moderate income families to support affordable housing and disaster recovery needs across Jefferson, Shelby, Walker and St. Clair counties. Houses are not given away—homeowners partner with Habitat Birmingham and take part in a minimum of 300 hours building the home alongside volunteers like those from the Benevolent Fund, in addition to taking 10 hours of homeownership education workshops.

Bolstered by the belief that quality, affordable housing is vital to the strength and condition of any community, Habitat Birmingham’s has made homeownership attainable for 66 UAB employees and students and hundreds of other families in our community. Each UAB Habitat build sponsorship cost $50,000, which means a total of $350,000 has been awarded to UAB builds. As a designated nonprofit of the Benevolent Fund, Habitat Birmingham currently receives an additional $13,000 annually from UAB. Since 2014, more than 3,750 UAB employees and students have volunteered 17,200 hours to help with home builds, which provides an economic impact to the community of $395,000.

And the work continues: after a pause because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Habitat Birmingham and the Benevolent Fund partnered for its seventh build together this fall.