How an Affordable Housing Company in Mexico Tripled Its Social Impact John Converse Townsend - Forbes
go to original October 7, 2014

¡Échale! a Tu Casa Premio Katerva (echaleMx)

There are up to 10 million people in rural Mexico — most of them agricultural workers and their families — who need a new home or home improvements in order to meet internationally recognized standards for adequate housing. In areas like Campeche, many families huddle together in a single bedroom — tin roof above, dirt floor below. “They live in shacks, carton or stick shacks,” said Raffaella Piazzesi.

But not after Piazzesi and her team from the for-profit housing development company ¡Échale! a tu Casa show up in town. Since 2006, they’ve built and sold 30,000 new homes and made 150,000 home improvements.

The ¡Échale! story is one of positive social disruption. It begins in the 1997 after Hurricane Nora ripped through southwest Mexico. The Mexican government asked ¡Échale! — then a not-for-profit — to help with reconstruction by providing houses for one of the affected communities, providing disaster relief and effective charity work.

...Business was good. But when ¡Échale! sent a team to check-in with some of their families, what they found surprised them.

“Some of the houses were literally abandoned,” Piazzesi said. “Others were not treated right. People did not see the great benefit they had by having a house, because it was handed down to them as charity. We didn’t like that.”

The company regrouped ... and decided to spin-off as a for-profit.

Profit is often considered a four-letter word in the development sector. But since ¡Échale! switched to a for-profit model — focusing its operations on offering the best houses possible at the lowest prices rather than fundraising — the company has made three times the impact, Piazzesi said.

There was a hidden benefit, too.

“When we started charging for houses, we started seeing a completely different mindset from the participants,” she said. “They saw it as something they were creating, not as something given to them — it was their work, their effort, their home. It was amazing to see.”

Read the full story at Forbes

Photo: Echale.com.mx

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