BACKGROUND

Habitat for Humanity/Germantown was formed by a group of volunteers for the purpose of rehabilitating vacant and vandalized housing in southwest Germantown.  The effort focuses on Pulaski Town. 24 sites were identified for potential acquisition through Philadelphia's Donor-Taker program.  Under the program owners of vacant properties are identified and requested to donate the house to the City.  Back taxes and liens are forgiven and the properties are turned over to qualified non-profits, such as Habitat for Humanity.  Partner families are selected from a pool of applicants who are currently under-housed.  There are generally 70 applicants for each house.  The selected family commits at the outset to working with Habitat for 330 hours.  The house is sold at cost.  Habitat holds the mortgage interest free.  Monthly payments by the partner family are about $400 a month, including the mortgage, insurance and utilities.  Energy-efficient construction helps to reduce monthly costs.  Family income is generally less than $15,000 per year.  

CONTEXT

Pulaski Town is located in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, eight miles northwest of City Hall.  Large single-family houses surround the ten-block area.  The central commercial district of Germantown is a ten-minute walk to the northeast.  Busses, commuter trains and tree-lined streets provide ready access to other city neighborhoods.  Pulaski Town was built as a community of about 2,000 units of affordable housing owned by black freemen.  The homeowners largely built the houses.  Neighborhood commercial businesses were mostly owned by families who did not live in Pulaski Town.  Residential and neighborhood commercial construction in the area took place from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century .