I always thought Habitat for Humanity would help far more people by doing general home repairs rather than building complete houses. The money could be spread out much further.
When you do home repairs yourself you can do most anything internal yourself without a building permit.
Habitat for Humanity will always end up getting a building permit. Therefore everything they do will have to be done to state and local building code because it will be inspected by the local building inspectors.
So depending on the house it may end up being cheaper to build a new house than try to bring an old house up to code.
Even repainting an older home’s interior now is a nightmare because of Federal Regulations. (Lead)