Habitat Poland

Next, we toured two recent Habitat projects in the City. One was an innovative Communist-era, public housing building restoration. Habitat purchased the top attic floor of the building from the City to generate enough capital to renovate the whole building. Then, they worked with corporate partners, donors, and more than 180 volunteers to build Studio apartments in the attic as transitional housing for at-risk youth. The youth—many of whom have been in detention or struggled with addiction—live rent-free in the spaces as they complete their education or vocational training. A local teacher lives in one of the apartments and provides ongoing support to the youth. Another facility involved Habitat providing a loan to local building owners to renovate their apartment building. Throughout, we learned about the housing shortage and challenges in Poland, where approximately 20% of apartments do not have private bathrooms.