If you are in any way connected to the housing industry or its suppliers, this message is of importance to you. If you care about approximately 2,000,000 Haitians without homes, or 10% unemployment in the U.S. and rising, this matters to you. If you’d like to see your tax dollars or charitable donations create jobs here in America – and yes, abroad too – here is your chance to ACT.
This blog post will presuppose that you’ve read the post on Haitian Disaster Relief and American Factory Built Housing: Crisis Meets Opportunity:
Records numbers logged on last Monday, and many replied to that post a week ago, with reader comments overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal or some variation of it. Thousands came here last week, so if we mobilize those thousands with thousands more – if we ACT! – we can make the difference!
Take 10 to understand the issue – then reach out to policy makers – then follow that up by reaching out to your Industry Connections and Associations who can likewise influence policy makers. If enough housing professionals repeat that chain of events, a ‘good idea’ can become a reality. That ‘good idea’ will in turn benefit you and others!
A rough estimate of 10 billion dollars could put thousands back to work building housing instead of tents for those 2,000,000 Haitians. Properly invested, that 10 billion could build 400,000 strong yet modest dwellings, transport and install them. Compare that to passing out billions for unemployment checks, which makes more sense? Would we rather put Americans back to work, and let American know-how team up with Haitian labor installing those homes; or would we rather see waves of refugees coming to our shores as so often happens after political or economic disasters overseas? How long will 2 million people live in tents 710 miles from Miami, Florida?
Compare 10 billion in ‘Homes for Haitians’ built by American modular, pre-fab and manufactured home producers to the 20 billion or so spent in a single year by U.S. foreign aid programs in 2008. Hmmm…sending 20 billion plus dollars overseas, or building 400,000 homes in America, shipping and installing them to homeless Haitians…for half that cost!
Or think about this: “U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies,” said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. That TARP money related quote comes from Bloomberg, July 20 2009.
That 10 billion pales in comparison to the banking, insurance and auto bail outs, doesn’t it? Instead of ‘paying for past mistakes,’ let’s pay for homes that put our people back to work! Let’s use a fraction of those dollars to pay for modular and manufactured home producers to build homes for Haitians that will help people in both countries!
A brief survey reveals there are 3 potential sources for the funds to pay for putting America’s factory built housing resources to work building homes for refugees. They include:
- Charitable organizations
- International organizations
- The U.S. Government
Please contact your state and national housing associations. A list can be found at: http://www.mhmarketingsalesmanagement.com/associations-directory Call or email them on this topic and tell them how you feel. They can organize this sort of effort.
Then, why not contact the church or charitable organization you’ve given money to for Haitian relief? Let them in on this common sense plan. If enough charities here from enough of you, they can act and can also influence policy makers. It is a common sense, natural connection for this crisis.
But don’t stop there.
Contact your representative and U.S. Senators – you can go to a website like: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml plug in your zip code and get links to email or call your U.S. Senators and Representative. Since President Obama promised jobs last year in Elkhart, IN – in a focal point of manufactured home construction – let him act on his words. The president also promised not to abandon the Haitian people in their hour of need. So contact the president on this topic too. The White House contact is found in that same link above.
The Alternative?
Nothing on the horizon today can put American housing factories, their workers and suppliers back to work faster than this would. While the headlines on Haiti are still in the news, this is the time to respond to a Call for ACTION.
Contact your connections with the Industry. Please, pass this link along,
http://www.mhmarketingsalesmanagement.com/blogs/tonykovach/a-call-to-action/
and having acted yourself, you can ask them to act too. You forward jokes, news and views…forward this too!!
There are give-aways and bailouts. But then there are savvy moves that could save us billions more than we’d invest in such a project. As taxpayers, we should have a SAY in how our tax dollars are spent! What would the result be for inaction in Haiti? Will we spend billions more down the road for troops to police their streets to quell unrest when millions get tired of living in tents? Would we rather spend money on unemployment here and there? Would it make more sense to keep Haitian families together and working in their own land, than have them end up on our shores in large numbers? Let Haitian labor learn from skilled American’s how to install the homes we could build for them and the let Haitian’s be part of the process to rebuild their native land!
Do you see how it just makes sense to invest tax and charitable money with the local component, supplier, transporters and factory built housing manufacturer instead?
“A dollar spent at a locally owned store is usually spent 6 to 15 times before it leaves the community. From $1.00, you create $5.00 to $14.00 in value within that community.” ~ Tim Mitchell, first cited in E-magazine.
The argument is made that spending with a local firm is better than a national one, but let’s be clear, it would be better to spend dollars now in America building houses in our modular, pre-fab and manufactured housing factories than the alternatives. Let’s build and ship American housing, which will recirculate in our local economies. 10 billion invested wisely in such a plan could house the Haitians. Or it will be spent in the blink of an eye in a military ‘police action’ there, or in unemployment and relief spending here and there.
Doing the Math
Manufactured housing, modular housing, pre-fab and panelized home builders – all factory-built home makers – could rapidly tool up to build strong, modest “Homes for Haitians.” Do the math. $10,000,000,000 (10 billion) divided by a U.S. Population estimated at 308,545,701 would cost $32.41 per person to make this project a reality. You may have already donated more than that to Haitian relief!
Let’s not miss another key point.
The Potential for Positive Media
As noted in the first blog post on this topic – properly handled – the possible PR benefits could be priceless to our industry! Imagine images of American producers building these homes – happy Haitians receiving and working at installing them – that could get Americans thinking about American modular and manufactured housing in a positive light, which they should! Positive media coverage could drive large numbers of Americans to manufactured home, pre-fab and modular housing retail centers to check out what our industry does today. That too would ripple through the economy in positive ways! We could use that opportunity to educate millions of American’s to the appeal, quality and the savings that they are looking for in these challenging times!
Let’s build homes and opportunities, not bullets or bailouts. Strong, modest dwellings for Haitians would return factory built housing workers and their suppliers back to work in the U.S. and Canada, which in turn allows our citizens to keep or buy our homes here.
Nature abhors a vacuum. How often have political or bureaucratic policies or inaction hurt our industry? Isn’t it long overdue for us to rally around a cause that can BOOST our Industry instead of harming it? Let’s fill the need for housing in Haiti, and use that to catapult ourselves into a turn-around decade for our Industry starting now in 2010!
The manufactured housing industry directly employees perhaps half a million people in the U.S., not counting thousands of more Canadian workers similarly engaged. Pre-fab and modular home producers’ employ still more. Those jobs influence other component and service providers. We don’t build homes at the www.MHMSM.com trade journal, but we believe that everyone connected with the Housing Industry has a vested interest in making sure our factories and their suppliers return to work sooner than later.
Just think: if only 1 out of 10 connected with the Industry contacted Congress and the White House, the odds of action would rise dramatically. There are companies in this industry that could influence this American Factory-Built Homes for Haitians plans almost solo if they mobilized their people! From individuals, to small or large organizations, 50,000 calls or emails would be huge. Heck, there are tons of YouTube videos out there with more hits than we would need!
The bottom line is that this is DOABLE – if you do your modest part today.
Please, make your voice one of those needed to move this concept ahead! Once you do, pass this request on!
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml Tell Congress, tell the White House, tell your associations you’d like to see ACTION.
There are five motivators – Pride, Profit, Love, Need and Fear. Pick the motivator(s) you need to move YOU to ACTION, and then please pass this Call to Action it on!
Once the headlines on Haiti fade, so will this opportunity. Let’s not look back and say that we failed to try. ##
