South Shore Habitat for Humanity plans to build two new homes in Hingham next year. Before Habitat breaks ground, they must raise hundreds of thousands of dollars and, of course, choose the families that will soon call the houses home. In this episode we talk with Andre and Danielle Lavoie. They purchased a Habitat home in 2007. Andre's family has been in Hingham for more than a century, but for the young couple, a home in the wealthy Boston suburb was far out of reach. Danielle Lavoie said, "It was like, 'Okay, do I go buy dinner? Or do I get sneakers for the kids?' That's how it was."

In this episode we talk about the housing crisis in Massachusetts and the challenge of building affordable housing in wealthy suburbs. We dig into the data and look at the societal and economic costs of not having diversity in available, decent and affordable housing.

www.thehinghamcast.com

www.sshabitat.org