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Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood join Habitat for Humanity

Vaseline October 1, 2024

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Twin Cities Habitat homeowner LeAndra Estis speaks at a news conference at Habitat for Humanity’s Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project in The Heights housing development on St. Paul’s East Side on Monday, September 30, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

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Two years after Hurricane Katrina devastated large parts of New Orleans, country crooners Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood thought they could lend some star power to a weeklong housing project there spearheaded by Habitat for Humanity and the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project.

Celebrities taking part in one-off charity activities is nothing new, but what the husband-and-wife performers didn’t expect was to discover the former US President and First Lady bickering on the construction site just like any other married couple.

“They were arguing about measuring a plate. They just couldn’t get it,” Brooks said Monday, recalling his first build alongside the Carters, which he found refreshingly normal. “Finally she just threw her hands up and said, ‘Okay. You can cut it again, but it will still be too short. ”

The Carters had made history for their humility while sleeping in the basement of a church during their first construction in New York City 38 years ago. They were no more overbearing – and no less practical – in New Orleans in 2007.

Continuing a tradition

Inspired by their hands-on volunteer work, Brooks and Yearwood have continued to participate in Work Projects construction almost annually for the past 17 years, reuniting with the former first family to install dozens of homes at a time for low- to moderate-income homebuyers. the world. The country stars continued the tradition without them this year. Rosalynn Carter died last year; Jimmy Carter, who entered home health care in Georgia more than 18 months ago, turns 100 on Tuesday.

“You tell it to your girls when they’re growing up, you tell it to anyone who will listen, you always want to be part of something bigger than anything you can do alone,” Brooks said, turning to a tent at a rally full of media cameras aimed. press event Monday at the construction site on St. Paul’s East Side.

The impetus for their latest Work Project project is the Heights, the development unfolding on the 112-acre former Hillcrest Golf Course site on Arlington Avenue, where Habitat for Humanity is installing the first 30 of approximately 174 Habitat affordable homes .

The homes range from four-plex townhomes to single-family homes that will be sold to future Twin Cities Habitat customers at lower-than-normal interest rates and below-market prices.

‘Not just an urban core problem’

The workplace – the largest in Twin Cities Habitat’s history – was buzzing with about 1,000 volunteers on Monday, the first of five workdays that will draw a total of about 4,000 participants, many of whom come from abroad.

According to the Minnesota Housing Partnership, while wages have increased in recent years, the rising cost of housing has far outpaced the increase. Owner income has increased by 2% over the past five years; Home values increased by 19% in the same period. A household would have to earn a combined annual salary of $98,500 to afford a median-priced home in Minnesota, a threshold that contributes to the state’s racial homeownership gap. About 77% of white families in the state own their own homes, compared to 29% of black families.

“This is not just a core urban problem,” said Chris Coleman, president and CEO of Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, during Monday’s media event. “This is a problem in rural communities, but also in urban and suburban communities. … You can’t grow Polaris or Digi-Key (Electronics) in northern Minnesota unless employees have a place to live.

That sentiment was echoed by Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International, who said communities across the country are struggling with housing costs.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about land and financing,” Reckford said. ‘And if you look at the gap between what the average family can afford and what a house now costs to build, it is the largest in modern history. … In many of our major metro areas, Habitat is joining or creating large mixed-income communities.”

‘Decisive power and self-determination’

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, who broke ground Monday and lent a hand in construction, called homeownership an important path to building wealth and stability for low-income families.

“When the dean of my business school said the word ‘equality,’ she was talking about … the right to decision-making power and self-determination,” the mayor said. “Every hammer blow we hear is the sound of a family being able to move into a house with equity. … We need more housing.”

Yearwood said the Habitat build has become a week she and Brooks look forward to annually. Twice the Work Project has taken them to Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, where poverty was immediately apparent upon arrival.

“You get off the plane in Port au Prince and cry all the way to the construction site,” Yearwood said. “And then we went back the second year… you cry a little less, because you see improvement, even though it is hard. My favorite thing was going back to the construction site and… seeing the homeowners, and seeing the light in their eyes, and seeing them bloom. Everyone deserves that opportunity.”