Matt Bower, Daily Times
04/14/2007
WARWICK - The cold weather yesterday wasn't enough to stop the hammers of Ron Phipps and a crew of more than 50 volunteers as they worked to complete a "house-in-a-box" to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
Once the house is complete, it will be shipped to the Gulf Coast for assembly. It is just one of 54 planned homes being built for survivors of the hurricane through a national campaign known as Operation Home Delivery, the brainchild of Phipps.Phipps, a Warwick resident, board member and past president of the Rhode Island Association of Realtors, said the plan came to him after speaking with a close friend of his, Marine J. Danny Cooper, an executive officer with the Alabama Association of Realtors."We were at a meeting in Washington, D.C., about six months after Katrina had hit and I said to him, 'So is everything back on track now,' and he said to me, 'Oh no Ron, disaster is starting to unfold now,'" Phipps said. After learning from Cooper that families in the Gulf Coast region were still struggling and dealing with the effects of Katrina, Phipps started to work with the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and Habitat for Humanity to come up with a way the agencies could help those families."We have a relationship with Habitat where we typically build one house per year with them, but for this cause we decided to do one per state," he said. Phipps said using the Operation Home Delivery program, the National Association of Realtors encouraged realtor associations throughout the country to sponsor and build a new home for victims of Katrina."It was really important last year when [Realtor associations] raised $70,000 in each state, especially for Rhode Island, because there are only 5,200 Realtors here, so that was a big deal," he said.Phipps said it costs $75,000 in materials alone to construct one "house-in-a-box," but he said realtor organizations across the country have raised more than $4.6 million with $270,000 coming from Habitat for Humanity. Every penny goes directly to the victims in need, he said.Phipps said there will be 54 houses in total; one from each state plus four more for four extra territories."I may have initiated this cause, but the Rhode Island Association of Realtors and NAR made this inspiring campaign possible," said Phipps, the New England-endorsed candidate for the president of the National Association of Realtors in 2011. "By combining our compassion, our vision and our sweat, I knew we could do something meaningful for Katrina victims."Phipps said not all of the houses will be built outside the area, as some Realtor associations, such as those in Massachusetts and Connecticut, have gone down to the region and helped build homes on site."Realtors have hearts of gold. We're in the shelter business, we're fixers and we're doers," he said.That good-will spirit was on display in New Orleans during a Realtor convention when thousands of Realtors donated their time to help the city, according to Ken Libby, owner of Stowe Realty in Vermont and vice president of the New England Region of Realtors."Twenty-eight thousand Realtors volunteered 8,600 hours of their time to help rebuild the city," said Libby.Phipps, who also visited New Orleans, said the level of devastation there was overwhelming. If one were to take all the houses in Vermont and shipped them down to the Gulf Coast, that number would be equal to the number of homes that were destroyed in the hurricane," Libby said."When you go block after block of empty, destroyed houses for miles, you can't help but have a great sense of loss. The thought of not doing anything about it doesn't even cross your mind," he said. "The lesson of this project is that we'll positively influence the lives of 54 families with the work we're doing."Phipps said he was there when a mother and her two daughters moved into the first completed home that was built in New Orleans last November."I felt like a proud parent to see the looks on their faces," he said. "People came together to do great things and everyone shared in the responsibility of making that happen."Phipps led volunteers from the Rhode Island Association of Realtors and from the Providence Chapter of Habitat for Humanity in a "wall-raising" ceremony yesterday morning to commemorate the program, which started in February 2006, he said."All houses will be built and delivered by the end of 2007," he said.
©Kent County Daily Times 2007
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