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Comment by bretthagler | Hacker News Reader

hey guys! would love any feedback, and here to answer any questions you might have.

Do you have issues with land property? If you do, how do you solve that?

I have some experience with housing social projects in Brazil. And it was a big problem that the ones with most need for a decent house were exactly the ones with illegal settling. Illegal settling is a danger in itself, because in real life for this families is understood as "temporary settling", as there are no formal guarantees that you stay there 5 years from now. And there is no more overlooked place (in maintenance, decoration, care, government accountabilty) than a temporary home. But, in practice, these poor families stay there for decades.

So the combination of the temporary mindset with permanent stay create horrible places to live. And that excluding the risk that a house built today might actually be taken from you tomorrow. But my deepest point is that even is not taken from you in decades, illegal settling is still a dangerous problem.

How do you deal with that?

Edit: aslafci (who answered this question below as a cofounder) comment is dead. Just FYI. Her answer is:

"aslafci 4 minutes ago [dead]

hi soneca, Great and important point that is top of mind as we scale. The homes are built on land that was granted to our nonprofit partner from the Haitian government for this purpose. Families will not only own the physical structures but the land it sits on as well. Alexandria (New Story Co-Founder)"

hi soneca,

Great and important point that is top of mind as we scale. The homes are built on land that was granted to our nonprofit partner from the Haitian government for this purpose. Families will not only own the physical structures but the land it sits on as well.

Alexandria (New Story Co-Founder)

Hi soneca!

Re: Issue with land property: The Haitian government has issued this land for this purpose (home building). So the families will own the land as well as the physical structures. Our mission is to build as many self sustaining communities around the world and this is something that we are very proud of.

Thanks! --Matthew (Co-Founder of New Story)

When you say you want to build homes that could last "10 to 15 years," why such a short amount of time? Note that I'm not being critical. I think what you're doing is fantastic. I ask because I assume that even a cheaply built wood framed home could easily last several decades. Is there a specific structural vs. cost tradeoff that you have decided to make?

hey Kevin - great question. We believe the homes actually WILL last for decades, there was a little confusion from the writer. The homes are built to Dade country and Broward county (south florida counties) standards.

This is a great idea. I did a lot of work with Habitat for Humanity and helping build homes is a powerful part of getting people out of poverty & into the workforce. How do you handle the production of the homes and do you have plans to improve that process?

Another similar question: How do you handle the purchasing of land? Do the recipients own the land?

Hi ROFISH!

The Haitian government supports this project and has issued the land for this purpose (home building) so the families will not only own the physical structures, but the land as well :)

--Matthew (Co-Founder of New Story)

Hi Frank! Thanks for the kind words.

We work with local partners that have been on the ground, know the area, and are excellent at what they do (aka their bread and butter - building homes). The real cool thing is that the homes are built using local labor so it's a win-win benefiting the local economy.

In the future, we'll scale using other local partners around the world. One thing in particular that we've implemented in Haiti to improve the process is turning their paper process to digital - HUGE difference in reporting and increasing efficiency.

--Matthew (Co-Founder of New Story)

I'll donate later this week. Great nonprofit. Question: do you feel there is added value to using the "all-or-nothing" crowd funding model? How would this be different from simply earmarked aggregated funds with individuals following the families they helped support?

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