December 30, 2024
Robert Franklin/USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn
Former President Jimmy Carter and wife, Rosalynn, on the site of a Habitat for Humanity project in Indiana in 2018. The couple worked with the affordable housing organization for decades.
Former President Jimmy Carter had only one Habitat for Humanity project in Philadelphia during his lifetime. But as the affordable housing organization's first builds in the city, his work here in the 1980s had a lasting impact.
Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, and his wife, Rosalynn, began collaborating with the nonprofit in 1984 — a few years after his only term in the White House. Over decades, the couple helped build 4,390 homes alongside more than 104,000 volunteers in 14 countries, the organization said.
In 1988, the couple came to the 1900 block of Wilt Street, near Temple University, where they stayed in a dorm room for three days. Through the Carter Work Project, they helped renovate five vacant houses that were then sold to first-time homebuyers, according to the organization.
"They brought with them both their own spirit and modeling of working side-by-side with neighbors and future homeowners, and then an entourage of volunteers who were also drawn to come work and swing a hammer," said Corinne O’Connell, Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia CEO.
At the time, Carter was unimpressed by Philly's housing efforts. He said Habitat didn't get the same aid from labor unions and private developers that he had seen in other cities, according to a 1988 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. He said the city had "perhaps one of the worst housing problems we have in our country," and that government leadership wasn't giving enough attention to the issue.
Since then, affordable housing is "definitely on the top of everyone's agenda," said Adam McGrath, Habitat for Humanity Philadelphia director of marketing and communications. He said the organization works closely with other nonprofits, the city, contractors and community organizations.
At a government level, McGrath pointed to the Parker administration's work to fulfill a campaign promise of 30,000 new affordable housing units. He also noted that O'Connell recently met with Gov. Josh Shapiro's team about creating the state's first Housing Action Plan, and that Habitat Philadelphia just received a federal grant for housing repairs in Grays Ferry.
"It seems like there's a lot of positive momentum across all levels of government and certainly business as well," McGrath said. "We know that housing touches all the different pieces of a strong foundation in the city."
The Wilt Street properties, meanwhile, are still standing and owned by Habitat for Humanity families, O'Connell said. Some residents have paid off the mortgages, including one family who gave the house back to the organization to resell to someone else in need.
In the late 1980s, O'Connell said Habitat was a grassroots effort, but today it's built and repaired nearly 1,300 houses in Philly and just completed a 21-unit, multifamily development in Strawberry Mansion. Earlier this year, a build on North 40th Street in West Philly was partially inspired by Carter and named Rosalynn's Way after his wife, who died in November 2023 at age 96.
"To go from the early days where it was one or two homes at a time, to now be building at 20, 22, 23 homes in a development at a time is remarkable," O'Connell said.
That original build is also the namesake of Habitat Philadelphia's Wilt Street Legacy Society, a group of people who included the organization in their estate plans. The society was started with $1 million from a single donor in 2021 and now has more than two dozen people who have made pledges.
In light of Carter's influence, Habitat Philadelphia said it plans to invite the public to write messages on framed walls that will be built into future homes following his funeral.
Carter helped build thousands of houses around the world, largely through the Work Project, a weeklong, annual building event. The 2025 project, scheduled for Oct. 26-31 in Austin, Texas, will continue as planned. When it's finished, it will be an entirely geothermal neighborhood in eastern Travis County, said to be the first in the country.
“I think every human being has within himself or herself a desire to reach out to others and to share some of our blessings with those who are in need,” Carter once said, according to a statement from the organization. “What’s opened up that avenue for me and my wife and hundreds and thousands of others is Habitat for Humanity. It makes it easy for us to reach out and work side by side with the homeowner who’s never had a decent house, perhaps. I haven’t been on a Habitat project that I wasn’t thrilled and inspired and wept.”
