SACRAMENTO WORLD HABITAT DAY CELEBRATION
Community, Homeless Join to Build "Green" Home

SACRAMENTO - This year, the United States will play host to World Habitat Day, an annual international event sponsored by the United Nations General Assembly to promote innovations in affordable housing and sustainable
urban development. The U.S. is hosting the global celebration for the first time ever with several events planned in Washington, DC, across the country, and throughout the world.

Sacramento will mark the event with "SafeGround...Homeward Bound" beginning with a pancake breakfast followed
by an opportunity to work to build a Habitat for Humanity home on Monday, October 5 at 2777 Forrest Street, Sacramento beginning at 8 a.m. with a press event at 9 a.m.

"This year's theme, Planning our Urban Future, is an opportunity to bring attention to some of the most promising urban planning ideas being explored across the globe," said Shaun Donovan, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. "It is an opportunity to create a platform for international partnership that helps make socially, environmentally and economically sustainable urban communities a reality for all of us."

The Sacramento community will celebrate World Habitat Day 2009 by drawing the connections between
homelessness and the call for a "SafeGround," the foreclosure crisis and the need for safe, decent and affordable housing in a sustainable community environment. In order to highlight these issues, homeless people from the SafeGround community will sling hammers side-by-side with other members of the community, elected officials and corporate leaders to help build a Sacramento Habitat for Humanity home located on Forest Street in Sacramento.

This home is one of four, in SHFH's first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified "green building" development. These homes meet the industry standard for energy efficiency, environmental design sustainable green building and development practices. This development showcases the reality that safe, decent
and affordable housing for homeless and low-income individuals can also be green and sustainable.

SafeGround....Homeward Bound is a partnership between homeless and housing advocates and government officials. This event is a collaboration between the Sacramento office of the federal Department of Housing & Urban Development [HUD], Sacramento Habitat for Humanity; Sacramento Housing Alliance, Housing California, SafeGround, Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee [SHOC], Loaves and Fishes, Volunteers of America and Francis House.

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