Most presidents are known best for what they did in the Oval Office, but former president Jimmy Carter is known just as much for what he did outside it.
His life’s work, after leaving the White House, has formed a legacy of affordable housing for the nation’s citizens living on the fault line of poverty, including here in Central New York.
In Syracuse, for example, a construction crew worked together this Spring to build a house on Fairdale Avenue.
They were volunteering for the local Habitat for Humanity, laying floorboards over the skeleton floor of the new home on the South side of Salt City.
Habitat's executive director Sarah Bruce was checking on the work and took a moment to recount a a common legend about former President Carter.
“Somebody was up on a ladder and said, ‘Hey, can you hand me up some nails?’” to which she said a Habitat volunteer looked down and saw, “There was Jimmy Carter handing them up the nails... he worked alongside and with everybody.”
While Carter’s volunteer work never made its way to Syracuse specifically, she said the impact of his going beyond the demanding work it takes to raise a roof has inspired volunteers everywhere.
“Even if people don't know exactly what Habitat for Humanity is or how our program works, they've heard of Jimmy Carter,” Bruce said.
On its website, Syracuse Habitat shows over the past three decades it has built, or renovated, more than 80 homes in Onondaga County. Thanks to volunteers like Scott Dutcher, who was part of the Fairdale Home construction crew.
“We’ve been working on flooring,” he said while he surveyed the work already underway. So, putting together some vinyl tile flooring for bedrooms and the hallway. It will work its way towards the living area of the home.”
Habitat for Humanity has been building two or three homes a year, with plans to do more. Officials say funding is the main restriction. The organization says the non-profit relies on the community to get the job done, as it tries to ease the affordable housing shortage in Onondaga County.
