Flower City Habitat for Humanity is merging with affiliates in Ontario and Wayne counties to form a single organization.
Board members of all three organizations unanimously agreed to the unification, with a goal of serving more families in a 3,400-square-mile region.
Once it is formed in January, Flower City Habitat CEO Matthew Flanigan will serve as president and CEO of the new Greater Rochester Habitat for Humanity.
"The three working together will just be more efficient and we will be able to do more service working together than parallel," Flanigan said of the merger, which has been in the works for over a year.
He said the organizations, which were already strong on their own, will further grow by learning from each other's best practices.
"There are some things in Ontario County that they do very, very well — say, in their ReStores — that help drive that bottom line that we'll start to get to learn in Monroe County. We do some things in Monroe County that they don't do in Wayne and Ontario counties because of their size, so we'll be able to do better combined fundraising."
The merger will not result in any layoffs among the combined 37 staff members of all three Habitats, Flanigan said.
Nash Bock, the current executive director of Ontario County Habitat, will serve as the new organization's chief business and innovation officer. JJ Cotter, executive director of Wayne County Habitat, will be vice president of programs.
The nonprofits will also each maintain a physical presence in the communities they serve, including offices and ReStores — donation centers that sell new and gently used furniture, appliances, building materials, and other items to the public at a fraction of the retail price.
Flanigan said mobility is sometimes an issue for people who need services, and they should not be expected to travel from Geneva to Rochester, for example, to get them.
While Habitat is known for building new homes, the Flower City chapter began a pilot home repair program a few years ago in response to the local housing crisis as a way to help veterans stay in their homes longer.
Flanigan expects the program to expand into Wayne and Ontario counties after the merger is finalized. This will target owner-occupied homes of senior citizens, veterans with disabilities, and low- to moderate-income families and individuals.
"We niche into that hard-working family that maybe is just having a little hard time getting by," he explained, "so we want to be helpful. It's for folks in the 30% to 60% of the median income of our area."
As with Habitat's model for newly built homes, homeowners seeking home repairs are expected to pay an affordable amount toward the service.
