When a family is in need of shelter or housing, it's comforting to know that there are hard-working organizations and charities to lend a helping hand. These admirable groups build more than homes and neighborhoods, they also build better communities.

Creating Homes

HomeAid is a leading non-profit provider of housing for homeless people. This group builds and renovates multi-unit homes for use by those who are temporarily homeless, so they can work on rebuilding their lives. Founded in 1989 by the Orange County chapter of the Building Industry Association of Southern California (BIA/SC), an affiliate of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), HomeAid has grown to 21 chapters in 15 states with four regional offices: Augusta, GA; New Orleans, LA (for hurricane-rebuilding efforts); Newport Beach, CA (headquarters); and Washington, D.C.

After building the multi-unit housing, HomeAid then donates the housing to charities such as the Salvation Army, Boys Hope Girls Hope, Mercy House, Volunteers of America, and other charities which facilitate residents in transforming their lives. HomeAid has built more than 135 multi-unit homes with an added 58 in development. These homes supply more than 3,500 beds per night nationally. HomeAid has delivered housing for more than 70,000 individuals including:

• Abused children and at-risk teens
• People living with HIV/AIDS
• Those who are temporarily out of work
• Victims of domestic violence
• Victims of natural disasters and other catastrophes

Habitat for Humanity® International is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing organization that embraces anyone devoted to eliminating poverty housing and homelessness from the globe. Habitat encourages people of all backgrounds, races, and religions to assemble houses together with impoverished families. Since its founding in 1976, Habitat has constructed more than 225,000 houses around the planet thus providing safe and inexpensive homes to more than 1 million people in more than 3,000 communities.

Volunteers are engaged for the labor along with help from the families in need. Donations from the community and other groups supply the Habitat building materials and funding resources. The newly constructed homes are reserved with a down payment and then sold at a no-profit cost using reasonably priced loans. Their mortgage payments help fund the building of other new Habitat homes. The cost for each home can range from $800 in developing nations to an average of $60,000 in the United States.

Creating Beautiful Communities

Keep America Beautiful is the largest volunteer-based community group committed to litter and graffiti prevention, neighborhood revitalization, waste minimization, and improvement of local public places. Millions of volunteers work throughout the year in community clean-up projects where personal responsibility and education are the focus. Keep America Beautiful partners with schools, civic governments, neighborhood groups, and businesses to promote responsible behaviors that affect the local environment and community. Their influential national affiliate network includes more than 565 town, city, and county affiliates along with 22 statewide programs. This vibrant affiliate network helps protect and improve local environments in more than 15,000 communities

Take Pride in America was founded in 1985 by the U.S. Department of the Interior for the purpose of protecting national landmarks and public lands. Volunteers help maintain and improve cultural and historical sites, public parks, wildlife refuges, forests, grasslands, local playgrounds, and other leisure spots. Take Pride in America draws its volunteers from corporations, civic groups, individuals, and all levels of government. Their mission is to empower the public to be responsible for public resources, invite the public at large to help in sustaining and improving public lands, and reward volunteers for their commitment to such projects.

The Nature Conservancy is an international nonprofit group established to preserve plants, animals, and ecological communities by protecting their native environments. The Conservancy has created a tactical, science-based methodology called Conservation by Design in order to recognize the geographical areas which need help the most. This four step process involves setting priorities, developing strategies, taking action, and measuring success. The Conservancy works hard to develop unique approaches to conservation planning for a wide range of biological areas.

Planning for the Future

The Ecological Building Network is an international association of architects, engineers, builders, developers, and academics who are dedicated to sustainable building practices and green design. One of EBNet's main objectives is the promotion and development of earthen buildings, fly ash concrete, and straw-bale construction. Their publications, seminars, and conferences focus on ecologically friendly building methods and materials such as reclaimed wood flooring.

Rebuilding Together is an organization that preserves and rejuvenates houses and communities in order to help low-income homeowners such as the elderly, disabled, and families with children. Essential repairs are completed free of charge to existing homeowners and can include roofing, modifications, plumbing, improvements, or electrical repairs.

Social Serve is committed to helping people locate low-cost housing options and helpful services in their local area. They maintain databases of affordable housing, rental housing, section 8 housing, accessible housing, and for sale housing. Their data system helps thousands of communities in numerous states. Social Serve also maintains a fully-staffed toll free English/Spanish Call Center which fields calls from landlords and tenants while supplying updates on property availability. They can help build an affordable housing database and website for specific communities. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, Socialserve.com launched five emergency websites for Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, the Greater Atlanta Metro Region along with HurricaneKatrinaHousing.org - the average time to launch each site was only 2.5-hours.

Relief during natural disasters is more important than ever. There are many organizations which plan for unforeseen future events by providing resources and services for those who are temporarily homeless due to natural disasters. Katrina's Angels is one such nonprofit group which coordinates housing, jobs, and other survivor resources for victims of natural events. The American Red Cross and its Hurricane Recovery Program are instrumental in helping those in need after natural disasters strike. More than 90% of the resources donated to them for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma were allocated towards food, clothing, and shelter right after the storm. The left over funds go on to supply services through the Hurricane Recovery Program. Direct Relief International is another organization which provides healthcare aid to those in developing countries along with victims of natural disasters, conflict, and civil unrest. They supply medicines, supplies, and equipment to regions around the globe with the goal of improving quality of life as people rebuild their communities.