This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Habitat for Humanity International traces its origin to Koinonia Farm, an interracial Christian farming community near Americus, Georgia founded by Clarence Jordan, a Baptist minister whose commitment to integrated community life was itself controversial in the segregated American South of the mid-twentieth century. It was at Koinonia that Millard and Linda Fuller, who had joined the community, developed the idea of "partnership housing," building simple, affordable homes alongside the families who would live in them rather than for them, and in 1976 the Fullers formalized that idea into Habitat for Humanity International.
The organization they founded, headquartered in Americus, Georgia, is deliberately not tied to any single Christian denomination, an interdenominational structure that let it draw volunteer labor and donations from across the wider Christian world rather than from one church tradition. It became internationally prominent in large part through the sustained, hands-on volunteer building work of former US President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn, whose annual work projects turned a housing ministry rooted in one Georgia farming community into one of the most publicly recognized Christian charities in the world.