How Raj and Natalie Address the Global Need for Housing
Natalie and Raj didn’t come to Habitat for Humanity of Kansas City as beginners. By the time they showed up on a build site here, they’d already spent years volunteering together in Palm Beach County, Florida, and with Habitat for Humanity in India.
Between the two of them, they’ve seen what a lack of housing stability looks like in very different parts of the world — and it’s shaped how they think about every single house they help build now.
A view from two continents
Raj splits his time caring for his mother in India, and the contrast between the two countries stays with him every time he travels back. That gap between what he sees on each trip is part of what keeps him showing up as a volunteer.
“India is one of the most populated countries, and probably 70% of people don’t own their home because of poverty and different things,” Raj said.
“When you go from the U.S. to India, you see the difference in how people are living, how everybody is struggling to have a roof over their head. That makes it totally different.
Even if I’m making just a 1% difference, that makes me happy,” Raj said.
Natalie sees the same idea from a different angle: what a home provides for a family. A home, gives a family stability and something to plan around.
“People need their own space, and they need to be able to call it their own,” she said. “You know you’re going to stay in this house, you’re going to live here. You don’t have to move every six months. No matter where they’re coming from, they know when they get home, they’re safe.”
Raj agreed, and framed it in terms of scale.
“Owning a home is probably one of the biggest deals anybody has,” he said. “When it comes to Habitat and how they enable that for different sets of folks, that’s a really big thing, and that’s what we really love — for us to be part of that.”
What changes from neighborhood to neighborhood
Natalie and Raj have also seen how housing challenges show up differently depending on where they are, sometimes just a few miles apart. Their first Habitat experience was in a challenging part of Palm Beach County.
“We’d go and fix their lawn, or roof, or a porch,” Raj said. “That was totally different than when we came to the Kansas City area.”
He pointed to their work in the Lykins neighborhood as an example of how much the need can shift from block to block. That range is part of what drew them to Kansas City in the first place. Kansas City, they’ve found, is bigger and more organized, with the ability to make an impact on multiple houses at once. But it was Palm Beach that built the habit.
“Had we not had the grounding we did there, we wouldn’t have thought to come here,” Natalie said. “They were like our starter, and now we have some inertia to keep going.”
Why it still matters, every Saturday
Ask Natalie and Raj to sum up why they keep coming back, and the answer isn’t really about the work itself, it’s about what a home means to each family.
“The opportunity to grow as a family starts with a home,” Natalie said.
“I always say home is where you feel the safest,” Raj added. “Safety begins with home.”
Natalie and Raj have seen housing insecurity up close and on more than one continent. That’s why nearly every week, you’ll find them on a Kansas City build site.