Community House Raising

The HDA hosts an annual "Community House Raising," and this meant that I actually got to do some construction!  It was supposed to take place last Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday but the weather was pretty terrible.  The plans for construction were to get the house dried in over the course of the three days.  "Dried in" is a term meaning that the house will be completed to the point where it is ready for the subcontractors (electrician and plumber) to come in and do their work.  Some of the work had already been done, the foundation block had been laid and the carpenters had completed the floor framing.  The plan was to complete the framing on Saturday, do the roofing on Monday, and install the siding on Tuesday.

However, because of the weather, we were only able to work half-days on Saturday and Monday.  Here are some pictures of those days:

We put down the subflooring, framed and sheathed the exterior walls on Saturday.  On Monday we framed and interior walls and started installing top plates.  During the week, the carpenters spent some time at the house working to get ready for friday.  They had the trusses installed and ready when the volunteers showed up on Friday.  I was only able to go out for the afternoon on Friday since I had clients scheduled that morning.  When I showed up they had already decked the roof and installed shingles on half of it.  Here are some pictures from Friday:

To see pictures of the whole project, you can go to our facebook page and look at the album: Community House Raising 2012. 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Housing-Development-Alliance

The event is held for several reasons.  One is to attract funding from local and individual sources.  Another is to raise awareness of our organization and what we do, and this is done by inviting local volunteers.  The event is well known throughout the community.  The family we were building the house for came out and volunteered all three days, which was great!  Not only did they get to meet the other people working on the house, but they were also able to gain "SHOP hours."  SHOP hours are a kind of sweat equity that make it possible for our clients to work on their house in place of a more traditional down payment.  Managing that program is a part of my responsibilities at the HDA!