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The Home Depot Foundation and Habitat for Humanity have announced the national expansion of Partners in Sustainable Building, a $30 million building program dedicated to greening more than 5,000 Habitat homes across the country.

It’s an exciting day today as The Home Depot Foundation and Habitat for Humanity International announce the national expansion of our $30-million, 5-year partnership,Partners in Sustainable Building. You can read the press release, but through the program, we are bringing grants and resources to help Habitat affiliates build at least 5,000 homes that meet Energy Star guidelines or another nationally recognized green building standard. With the first round of annual grants, more than 120 Habitat affiliates in 45 states will build almost 1,500 sustainable homes.

This is a significant program for the Foundation, among our very largest, and several people have asked why we are launching the program now, in this economy and with this housing market. I have to admit the question caught me off guard at first, because this seems like the most logical time to launch – and the time that this kind of program is needed most.

Through this partnership, we are focused on bringing the practical benefits of green building to families of modest incomes. While this may sound like just another “green” announcement, we are actually concentrating on the practical, pocketbook benefits of good building. The fact that some of these things are good for the environment is an added bonus, but not our first concern. We are much more interested in seeing energy bills being reduced by up to 50%; water bills going down by a third; and maintenance costs remaining low because durable materials are being used in the first instance – and all of it making economic sense from day 1.

So in answer to the question “Why now?” the answer has to be “How could we not!” The current economic and housing issues we are facing just confirm our belief that if we have helped a family move into a home that they can’t afford to live in over the long term, we really haven’t helped at all.

Check out the new The Home Depot Foundation Blog to read more about this project.