IXL Social Enterprise Case Studies Housing January 2012 | Page 8

Revolutionizing the way to make housing affordable for everyone houses. Volunteers and homeowners worked side by side to put up walls, roofs, and windows. Although education courses existed, housing was a segmented solution. a new precedent of urban development involving legal advice, education, training, and financial assistance beyond the traditional course of home building.33 Partners, more often than not, have joined HFHI to fit into the current offering and operate under similar policies and initiatives. For many affiliates, partnership represented a difficult and futile venture. Overlapping competencies can yield inefficiencies, financial misalignment can produce competing incentives, and management conflicts can prevent progress on every front. These successes are due to a number of distinctive policies and processes—not any one by itself Finally, it is important to note that each of these changes was made possible through a combination of strategic direction, local innovation, and qualified leadership. Change enablers in each of the case examples are pieces of a large and complex puzzle. It is the unique combination of a multitude of factors working together that has allowed HFHI to make so many changes in such a short period of time. What’s happening now? Affiliates all over the world are realizing the importance of partnerships and a more holistic community development process. Regional and local groups are making an effort to extend partnership networks into valuable adjacencies. After the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, almost 1.8 million people were left homeless.31 A complete systems revolution was necessary for HFH Haiti. Initially, HFHI partnered with other aid organizations in order to distribute shelter kits to over 24,500 families. HFH Haiti has reached out to donors, local organizations, and government programs to build a network of housing solutions that is on its way to serving 50,000 families in five years.32 What enabled change? HFH Haiti has also developed a global disaster response program called “Pathways to Permanence.” This initiative makes housing a process—each step moving a family from devastation to home ownership. It begins with assessment by experts and partners of structural integrity and needs, involves advocacy for tenure and ownership rights when government titles can be particularly unclear, and builds houses incrementally to maximize impact rapidly. The network of partnerships in Haiti is establishing HFHI wants to reach 50 million people by 2022 HFHI is working to reach a bold goal – helping a combined 50 million people through program, awareness, and advocacy in 10 years. This goal can be met if and only if HFHI can directly serve 1 million families a year with housing and shelter solutions. This will include scaling up building, increasing advocacy and fundraising goals, and growing training systems with partners and affiliates around the world. HFHI can do this in one of several ways: • By creating a more robust community development offering with new partners, competencies, and service-oriented offerings; • By innovating urban housing solutions and meeting the (different) needs of urban dwellers; • By understanding what business models and changes in delivery will be necessary to better scale across geographies; • By creating a more scalable, sustainable and powerful volunteer network that can drive accelerated expansion in each community. Housing support Community Development Housing Design and Building Building Materials Financing New house Rehabilitation & repair Housing Support Services Housing Support services Traditional mortgages/loans Housing Finance Incremental improvements Essential services(water, sanitation, etc.) Land and Tenure Advocacy Housing Finance Figure 4. Production: The Housing Value Chain and HFHI Activities 8 ((0