Guest Blogger: Tim Ruggles

Tim Ruggles is the CEO and executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County. 


Housing Oakland County

While jobs and wealth abound, in Oakland County, we still have a silent housing crisis. Something's not quite adding up. It's hard to believe that in Oakland County, one of the 10 wealthiest counties in the nation, nearly 700 people last year applied to become a homeowner through Habitat for Humanity. That means nearly 700 people who are working could not qualify for safe, affordable housing through traditional channels. I suspect that there are many, many others who would benefit from homeownership as well.

For perspective, the white-collar locales of Troy, Southfield, Farmington Hills and Auburn Hills are home to Fortune 500 companies and international businesses. Automation Alley, one of the largest employment milieus for engineering jobs in the U.S., is located in Oakland County. The Big Three automotive companies employ significant numbers of people here. In short, there are a lot of high-brow, well-paying jobs in our neck of the woods.

And yet, 10 percent of the local population lives below the poverty line, with a significant number of those individuals being children.

By national standards, Oakland County has a high rate of home ownership at 73.6 percent, and a slightly higher unemployment rate (7.8 percent) compared with the national 7.3 percent. Still, there is a disconnect between all these statistics and the realities of hard-working families who, for many reasons (divorce, abuse, job loss and more) cannot secure safe, affordable home ownership without our help.

At Habitat, our goal is to give a hand up – not a hand-out – to empower Oakland County residents to be responsible, successful homeowners. Our partner families are good people who don't want pity or judgment; they simply want to bring up their children in secure housing and family-focused neighborhoods. Every single Habitat homeowner must be able to purchase a home and pay the mortgage, which is held by Habitat. They're not getting a free home; they have to be solid candidates who can easily succeed with home ownership.

Since perception is reality, it seriously hurts us when people think we give homes away for free. There seems to be a missing link between the words we use and the work we do and how the public perceives us. Part of my mandate as leader of this wonderful non-profit is to educate the public on exactly what it is we do. 

We choose potential homeowners on the basis of stringent criteria, not the least of which is their ability to make monthly mortgage payments and maintain their home, in addition to being a contributing member of their neighborhood. When people apply to become a Habitat homeowner, they know up front that they will not only put in 300 hours of sweat equity in building or refurbishing their future home and the homes of others, they will pay for their home through monthly mortgage payments. They also take classes on financial responsibility to gain much-needed skills toward fiscal success.

People come to us when they have nowhere else to turn – they cannot go through typical channels toward home ownership, cannot qualify for a mortgage, whether because of the recent housing industry crash or for other, more complicated reasons.

These numbers are truly catastrophic – and there is no way we can serve all of these families, not by a long shot. Last year, we helped 20 families; this year we're aiming for 14. We help as many as our donated funding allows.

One of our challenges in Oakland County is to bring awareness to our quiet housing crisis. It is too easy for people to go about their lives without having to face a very real poverty issue. Most can drive Telegraph, Woodward, Maple Road or M-59, and never see the problem. Our housing crisis is a silent one – but we should all be concerned enough to work toward resolution.

We must figure out what is going on in our county and create viable solutions to truly remove the barriers to home ownership which can be the difference between a successful family and one whose children end up on the streets. Research shows that when children have a safe and secure home to return to every day, they are more likely to do well in school, graduate and go on to build fruitful careers.

Our corporate and community partners that invest in the Habitat mission either financially or with labor and materials not only help one family today, their investment continues to help more families into the future. Donations become the capital investment that allow us to build and renovate homes. The mortgage payments that come back to Habitat from our homeowners helps to fuel our mission into the future. The return on investment of each donated dollar is greater than 150% because of our financing model. Habitat is the only non-profit that I know of that can offer that kind of return on a donated dollar.

I am inspired to work tirelessly every day toward rebuilding Michigan, one homeowner at a time. Given the chaos of the past six years, with the real estate crash and the resulting inventory of vacant homes, we should all be united in this mission to make sure every deserving Oakland County citizen can in some way achieve a safe, affordable place to live.  There is truly no downside. It empowers us all.