Enthusiasm builds ahead of Affordable Housing Awareness Week

The executive director of Richmond Metropolitan Habitat for Humanity saw something yesterday that gave her great hope for the future of affordable housing in central Virginia: strangers.

"Other than a few faces, I recognized no one in the room," Leisha LaRiviere said a few minutes after the conclusion of Habitat's Building on Faith Affordable Housing Summit at First Baptist Church in Richmond. "Usually at these things, we see all the same faces."

The fresh faces represented dozens of groups that -- together with Habitat -- create, maintain and sustain housing in the area. They met yesterday to celebrate National Home Ownership Month and to get a jump on Affordable Housing Awareness Week, which starts Monday.

"We are challenged to cast a vision beyond ourselves and beyond our often-limited sight lines," said Gordon Mapes, the pastor of Brandermill Church, an ecumenical outpost that serves Methodist and Presbyterian parishioners. His church recently diverted money for improving its building to building a house for Habitat. "We need to dream big in our faith community," he said.

Dreaming was the easy part for Imad Damaj. It took a bit of soul-searching, though, before the president of the Virginia Muslim Coalition could get to that point.

After a friend questioned why a Muslim would donate his time to a Christian group, Damaj said he had to look deep to find an answer. "God anticipated we would be a diverse community," he said. "If he so willed, he would have made us one community. But plurality and diversity is in God's plan."

Laura Lafayette, the chief executive officer of the Richmond Association of Realtors, suggested that to promote affordable housing next week, people take off a day and work on a housing issue.

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .