Caterpillar Lends a Hand for Worthy Habitat

Caterpillar reports on its involvement with Habitat for Humanity

IN a backstreet of rural Yea in central Victoria, a quiet transformation is underway. Habitat for Humanity – a worldwide organisation dedicated to assisting the needy and families affected by natural disasters – are in the early stages of building 25 new homes for families affected by Victoria’s 2009 bushfires.

Mobilising the services, donations and in-kind support of a raft of businesses and partners, Habitat builds or renovates simple, affordable housing for sale to low income or disaster-affected families.

The ‘Yea Heights’ project – the largest housing project that Habitat Australia has undertaken, recently harnessed the strength of Caterpillar’s Compact Construction Equipment as well as Caterpillar and William Adams staff volunteers to transform the five acre site over a three day period in mid-May.

The fleet of Mini Excavators and Multi Terrain Loaders operated by Cat personnel – under the expert tutelage of William Adams’ operator trainer, John Merlo – worked rapidly to prepare the site for housing construction and infrastructure installation.

Habitat for Humanity is the world’s largest not for profit home builder having constructed more than 370,000 homes in all parts of the globe since its formation 36 years ago.

Operating in Australia since 1988, the organisation has had a presence in Victoria for 12 years having constructed more than 40 homes in the state.

According to Habitat for Humanity’s Yea Project Director, Neil Shields, the group’s focus is on giving a hand-up rather than a hand-out to those in need.

“We work in partnership with families based on their need and their willingness to work with us to help build their own home.

“They work with us from the start on the house and in doing so gain dignity, self esteem, confidence, learn skills and when they move in they can say ‘I helped build this house’,” Mr Shields said.

Under the normal Habitat program recipients of housing also commit up to 500 hours of ‘sweat equity’ to Habitat – which is typically accumulated on their own house construction.

When the house is complete, the family purchases it from Habitat for a price that was set prior to construction with Habitat providing the mortgage with a low deposit and repayments at 25% of the household income.

“What we offer is a financial contract but it is not onerous and not self-defeating,” Mr Shields said. “The program absolutely dignifies people and we have had a 100 per cent outcome with no defaults.”

“We are absolutely blown away to have Caterpillar and William Adams involved – we never take anything for granted in doing this and are continually amazed at the generosity companies like Cat and William Adams show,” Mr Shields said.

The ‘Yea Heights’ project is the major component of Habitat’s bushfire response having already established five ‘tool libraries’ in affected communities and renovated four former Defence Department houses at Portsea on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula to offer holiday accommodation for Black Saturday victims.

Habitat is also involved in leading weekly teams of Volunteers in the affected areas with ongoing work, fencing, clearing, painting etc helping those who need this support.

For companies like Caterpillar and William Adams, the benefits of their involvement at the ‘Yea Heights’ site are substantial according to Caterpillar’s Paul Moncur.

“Our particular Caterpillar team became involved with Habitat for Humanity through their Warragul housing project.

“We were told of their activities by our Local Contractors’ Industry Sales Manager, Bill Schaffroth, who had previously worked with them in the United States and by our Product Support Marketing and Operations Divisional Manger, David Carletti, who had worked with Habitat in Singapore and Sulawesi.

“We’ve had hands-on engagement as well as a great time working on this site,” Mr Moncur said. “Not only is it very satisfying to be involved, but also actually seeing both the results and contribution that our team has made to this particular project.

“While a golf day might be enjoyable, this sort of project has generated real excitement amongst our team whilst also having created a strong bond and delivered a very rewarding result for all involved.”

For further information please visit www.habitat.org.au

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