Millard Fuller, Found of Habitat for Humanity, Passes Away

You may not remember the energy crisis of the 1970s, the soaring inflation, etc., but it was all very real for an America emerging from a decade long war, slowly rebuilding its confidence in the integrity of the Office of the President, and beginning to witness a decade of manufacturing decline that would forever change the middle class in this country. In the muddle of Americans carpooling to work to save gas money, learning to live with one spouse laid off or underemployed, coming to understand that a job working the line at GM might no longer guarantee a cozy home in the suburbs and two shiny cars in the garage, and of the last wave of veterans coming home from an unpopular war, Millard Fuller took his culture of working together and giving to his fellow man to the next level.

In 1976, when it was seriously quite popular to blame the government, blame greedy industry (it wasn't so much the paranoid 'military-industrial complex' of the 60s as it was now just Corporate America), blame your lazy neighbors for their falling status in life and look inward to help only yourself before someone came and took what you had too, Millard Fuller and his wife formally founded Habitat for Humanity.

The name of the organization itself speaks volumes - they weren't building homes for individual people, they were building something for humanity. A habitat is the natural environment for an organism, a special environment for living in over an extended period ot time. Fuller understood that by assisting one person or a few people in building or rebuilding a 'home' - the bubble of cleanliness, safety and security that was their very own and which preserved their basic dignity, he was helping to elevate them without artificially enriching them. Archimedes famously said, "Give me a place to stand, and I will move the universe", and Fuller's very basic habitats were that place to stand for over 300,000 individuals and families since 1976.

Unlike the modern spin on helping our fellow man as worst exemplified by "Extreme Home Makeover" where we somehow think overguilding a family's lily will erase their pain or elevate them based on the principle of opulence itself, Fuller's form of giving was modest, and it involved a community working quietly together. There was no family vacation while giant crews came in and told the story to the world for the cameras, and there was no 'bus' moved so the family could marvel at the transformation of their lives in seven short days from one of hopelessness or grief or burden to one of awe over the giant screen TVs and state of the art appliances and all of the spacious rooms where they could now hide from each other and from life. Under Fuller's model those in need were given a modest leg up and were assisted virtually anonymously by local businesses, residents, etc., anyone who volunteered his or her time to work on rebuilding a falling down shack or building a modest home. If you look back at those 300,000 homes constructed to date by Habitat, you will likely not find thousands of foreclosures, or huge sums of money foolishly borrowed against an outsized asset in a slipping down life.

If you've ever driven through a modest neighborhood, you note quickly the homes with fresh paint, neatly trimmed lawns, clean windows, and perhaps flowers in beds under windows. For the people who live in these well respected and well-tended homes, this small oasis of three bedrooms and two bathrooms, fourteen hundred or twelve hundred square feet of solid construction, this is their 'place to stand'. They don't need much more than this, just as none of us need much more than this. This was what Millard Fuller understood, what he exemplified. He was a man endowed with gifts, with a great heart and with a talent for building. He understood not everyone could build as he could build, but that all could appreciate something made with their own two hands, with the assistance of the hands of their friends or neighbors.

If you've ever framed a doorway, installed windows, laid carpet, you know the gratification you get from doing this yourself, from walking through a room and seeing your handywork and understanding you are capable. "I" did this, you tell yourself, and it reminds you that you don't always need help, that sometimes you can accomplish things on your own, or more than that - you can help others as well because you are skilled. This principle is expanded in the Habitat for Humanity model, because you build with others. You understand you had some help with the foundation, but that it wasn't financial, it was muscle and sweat. The model is one of work together toward a common goal. That common goal is to provide basic housing to those for whom such a need can mean the difference between long term survival and breaking under the pressure of life.

Millard Fuller did not build palaces, he helped build homes, habitats, places where people could live for sustained periods of time despite the environment around them or to which they were exposed. Fuller's model was not one of handing a SCUBA cone to someone under water, but of teaching people to swim, to hold their heads up out of the water so that they could breathe on their own. To so many people in this country and around the world, to walk up a freshly painted porch and into a ten by twelve foot living room redolent of fresh paint and solid pine, it is like taking that first deep breath of fresh air after you have been struggling under the water for a long time. To come home to that modest house, to cook at your own working stove, wash clothes in a machine that operates well, and tuck your children into warm, clean beds protected by solid walls and windows is like the sensation of taking long, sure strokes toward shore. Fuller's work made strong swimmers of so many people because that is what we need to be, capable. As a community, as collective humanity, we cannot control the seas of change, but if we can swim well, then we are able to help those who fall beneath the surface and we can swim alongside them until they can swim on their own.

Millard Fuller was an example to everyone about what is good about our basic human nature. We are not all equally endowed and life does not treat us all evenly. To those to whom much is given, much is expected, and Millard Fuller never shrunk from his responsibilities to his fellow man, nor did he ever move away from his true nature. We do not need much to survive, but we do need to believe in ourselves, our strengths, it helps to be able to believe in the goodness of our fellow man, and if we have the basics, a sturdy roof over our heads and sufficient shelter, basic comfort, then the battle for survival is already more than half won. The other great lesson Fuller preserved daily for the last thirty-three years, was one of competence. I may be a banker or a homemaker or an entertainer, but if God gave me two strong hands hands or basic skills, I can learn how to use them to help build something very basic for myself, for someone else, then I am literally helping to elevate humanity. Fuller's example was not one of writing checks, but of rolling up sleeves to work together. His organization carries no corporate name and what it bestows is something of modest scale in the grand scheme of housing, but something of epic proportions in the realm of uplifting. HIs legacy is one we should all be moving forward, together.