Millard Fuller Keeps on Going: The Fuller Center for Housing

After just three months, Millard Fuller’s new housing organization—-The Fuller Center for Housing--is already making a mark in the effort to bring simple but decent housing to the poor.

After being unceremoniously dismissed from Habitat for Humanity over differences with an increasingly corporate board, Millard and Linda Fuller have jumped back into the work of providing good, basic housing with the same vigor that helped them make Habitat an international force.

With so many homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, The Fuller Center for Housing is planning an enormous multi-year project to provide good homes to families that have lost everything.

Fuller says in a letter on the Fuller Center Website:

“Millions of people really want to do what they can to help restore broken and shattered lives and rebuild devastated communities. We, at the Fuller Center, intend to help. A proposal is in the making to mount a rebuilding effort in the affected areas of the Gulf Coast. We cannot be involved in the immediate relief efforts. Many excellent agencies are doing that. But, we CAN come right behind the relief efforts and help people in need to rebuild. To that end, we are establishing a “Disaster Rebuilding Fund” to make this happen.”

The Fuller Center for Housing was started at the same birthing ground as Habitat, Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia. After 29 years of service to the poor, Millard and Linda Fuller – together with a small group of friends – decided to launch a new organization to support those on the front lines of building homes for the poor.

The mission of The Fuller Center is a simple one: to witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ by providing support to organizations working to provide decent housing for people in need around the world. Unashamedly Christian and enthusiastically ecumenical, The Fuller Center for Housing seeks to share Christ’s messages of love and service. It seeks to work as a companion with low-income housing providers and Habitat for Humanity affiliates by providing funds and other support to advance their important work.

In a project started this summer, The Fuller Center for Housing— in conjunction with Make Way Partners —provided funds to provide shelter to vulnerable families living in the sewers of Bucharest, Romania.

The need for decent shelter is immense. The United Nations estimates that over a billion people around the world live in substandard housing. The Fullers founded Habitat for Humanity with the simple, if audacious, goal of eliminating substandard housing for the poor. The organization they founded in 1976 has made remarkable progress towards that goal, providing decent homes for nearly a million of the world’s poor. But that success is dwarfed by the work that remains to be done, and through The Fuller Center for Housing, Millard Fuller’s remarkable entrepreneurial fund raising and motivational skills will continue to serve that labor of love.


--James Jewell