Over the 30 years that President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, have built houses with Habitat for Humanity, he has not wavered in his conviction that a decent home is a basic human right.
They’ve built homes from Haiti to South Africa, and a drive last night past the Denver Rescue Mission validated their mission.
“What impressed me is how affluent Denver seems,” he said, likening it to cities like Manhattan, San Francisco and Houston, “but in America we still have people who don’t have a decent place to live.”
He saw about 200 people lined up for dinner, including parents with children.
“What hit me worse than the other things was that they had their bedroll, blanket or sleeping bag beside them, and that was one of their most precious possessions,” he said. “They valued that bedroll almost as much as a Habitat for Humanity family values their house.”
On Wednesday, Carter — who so loves carpentry that the White House staff gave him tools for his workshop when he left office — hammered alongside all day in Globeville, one of three locations across the country included in the 30th annual Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project.
By the end of the week, more than 2,000 Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver volunteers — and some celebrity builders including Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood — with Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver will have completed the construction of 11 new town homes and made repairs to 15 other homes in Globeville.
“It’s unbelievable to see him and all these famous people and volunteers working on our homes,” said Saba Asgedom, a single working mother who spent the past few days during the work blitz painting her new home. “I can’t wait to move in, and be able to say that I own my own home.”
For now, she shares a one-bedroom apartment in Aurora with her mother and her two young children. Their new home has four bedrooms, and a neighborhood that will function as a community, “where we can all help each other,” she said.
Carter, who turned 89 earlier this month, is so driven by passion to create a better world that he rarely stops, whether it’s pounding nails, teaching Bible classes in his hometown of Plains, Ga., or traveling the world — Nepal, Myanmar and Colombia so far this year.
He has little patience for things like the government shutdown.
“The lack of cooperation in Washington now is appalling, and almost unprecedented, except just before the Civil War,” he said. “Democrats don’t talk to Republicans, the president and Congress don’t talk to each other. It’s just an abomination in a great democracy. They could learn all the lessons that are missing in Washington right now from the Habitat site in Denver.”
Working on a porch railing Wednesday morning, Jimmy and Rosalynn are so closely united that constant communication over where to nail or drill had their hardhats knocking together.
“He’s 89, and he could say, ‘I’m done, it’s been 30 years,’ but they are already planning for next year,” said Heather Lafferty, executive director and CEO at Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver. “He walks his talk.”
Habitat for Humanity has programs in 75 countries, and the Carters once spent a week in the Philippines working alongside 14,000 volunteers who built 273 houses in five days.
Carter said he dreams of the day when everyone has decent affordable housing and Habitat for Humanity is no longer needed, but current economic trends give him pause.
“Since I left the White House, there’s been such a dramatic change in the percentage of American wealth that goes to the richest people, so now a lot of folks that used to be middle-class are on food stamps,” he said.
Americans cherish such rights as the freedom of the press, speech, religion, and the right to a trial by jury, “but one of the basic human rights is to have a place to live, food to eat, a modicum of education, and at least a little bit of medical care,” he said.
“Those freedom rights are just part of the basic human right — the right to sustain yourself and take care of your children, and have them sleep every night under a roof,” he said.
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083, coconnor@denverpost.com or twitter.com/coconnordp
