About Us

UPC Habitat Mission Statement: To engage as many Church Members as possible to participate in urban ministry work by building one home every year for families in need.

In late 2000, UPC’s Urban Mission department, under the leadership of Pastor Allen Belton, began exploring teaming with the Seattle/South King County chapter of Habitat for Humanity to engage UPC members in an active partnership to help working poor families become homeowners. This effort involved forming a lay-run Task Force, raising all of the construction funds, coming alongside and advocating for our Habitat families, mobilizing volunteers to help with construction on Fridays and Saturdays, and coming up with a sustainable plan to repeat this process and build a home per year.

Since then, UPC has raised more than $575,000 and built seven Habitat homes. In December 2010 we begin work on our eighth house in Rainier Vista while working to raise $75,000 to sponsor our ninth house, also in Rainier Vista. Our volunteer database currently exceeds 1,150 names and has resulted in over 13,000 hours of construction labor towards building Habitat homes in the Seattle area. Our primary funding source is an annual fundraising breakfast held in January.

Along the way, we have transitioned from a program that initially involved leading and building a single family home alongside and in close partnership with our Habitat family to a process that spreads our effort over the larger build site, working with other groups of volunteers as well as future Habitat homeowners helping construct multi-family units. Throughout these changes, we remain keenly aware of the opportunity we have to be conduits of Christ's love as we build with Habitat for Humanity.

For more information about Habitat for Humanity, please see the links in the sidebar to the left.

UPC/Habitat for Humanity

About Us