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Jimmy Carter's Favorite Charity

A wildly expensive way to help small numbers of the non-poor.

Jun 13, 2005, Vol. 10, No. 37 • By PHILIP CHALK
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AN ORGANIZATION THAT NORMALLY WELCOMES press coverage of its bustling worksites and sweating volunteers, Habitat for Humanity has spent recent months in the awkward role of media target. News reports have tracked every move in a seedy executive-suite scandal that led to the January firing of the 29-year-old nonprofit's founder and president Millard Fuller over accusations of sexual harassment.

It wasn't the first time Fuller's hand had been slapped. When charges of unwelcome kissing and groping of female employees reached the organization's board in the early '90s, the evangelically-aligned group's most prominent supporter, former president Jimmy Carter, intervened on behalf of Fuller--a wealthy Georgian who was inspired to eliminate "poverty housing" while living in a commune in the 1970s. When the most recent charges arose, Carter again intervened, but this time the board ignored him and sent Fuller packing.

The matter now appears closed, despite lingering protests by volunteers and a legal spat over Fuller's effort to launch a new, similarly named organization. Habitat looks likely to retain its high-profile reputation as a cost-effective charitable endeavor, providing low-cost housing to America's homeless and poor.

Except that it isn't, and it doesn't. The hundreds of millions of dollars that Habitat raises and spends each year in this country--including large amounts from the federal government, philanthropic foundations, and corporate sponsors such as the Lowe's chain of hardware stores--benefit a relatively tiny number of people whose incomes are usually well above poverty levels. (The group builds about 6,000 houses a year.)

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