Bill Gates Sr. Rallies Habitat Crowd to Take on Family Homelessness

When Bill Gates, Sr., in his role as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, got up to speak at Habitat for Humanity Seattle/South King County‘s ninth annual benefit breakfast, he had decided to earn that “civil activist” reference in his keynote speaker’s biography.

“Habitat for Humanity,” he said, “is the best example of citizenship I can think of,” pointing out that the average citizen has 10 to 20 hours free for volunteer work, and Habitat for Humanity pulls in 40,000 volunteer hours per year. Impressed by that rate of volunteerism, Gates declared, “Each Habitat home is a symbol of the health of our civil society.”

He singled out Habitat’s work in the Westway neighborhood in Federal Way; Habitat has built, repaired, or renovated 30 homes there during 2007-2010, and is purchasing and renovating another home there this year. (Habitat for Humanity always stresses the fact that their homes are not gifts–all new homeowners put in hundreds of hours of sweat equity. “It’s an investment in myself,” said new homeowner Treaous Florence-Moreland.)

The work of Habitat for Humanity supporters today, Gates explained, is not simply to build a home, but to build a movement to address a crisis of homelessness. Habitat itself has responded by  partnering with youth training organizations (YouthCare), and opening retail home improvement stores that help fund its operations. (Seattle’s The Habitat Store is at 21 S. Nevada St.)

Gates took aim at family homelessness, in particular, saying that contrary to the public image of homelessness–that destitute man panhandling on the street–the fastest growing segment of the homeless population is families. “Think of a mother tucking her child into the back seat of cold car,” he said. “Soon one out of four children will live below the poverty line in the U.S.”

In affluent King County, he noted, 10,000 people are part of the homeless family population, but another 30,000 are “rent-burdened“–an accident or health crisis away from homelessness themselves. “Homeless families don’t figure prominently in our politics,” Gates added. “They don’t have a voice. You can be that voice.”

At which, all 730 people at the King County Convention Center rose for an ovation.