By TIFFANY MONDE and MATT CHANDLER
Buffalo Law Journal

Like many people looking to make a difference in their community, David Floyd found an opportunity through his church.

Floyd, a retired Phillips Lytle LLP attorney, began volunteering with Habitat for Humanity through the East Aurora congregation he belongs to. On the fourth Saturday of every month, he'd work on the homes the organization was building or renovating for low-income families.

By the time he retired from the law firm 16 years ago, Floyd had built a relationship with the organization - and so had Phillips Lytle. Today, Floyd is chairman of Habitat's site-selection committee, and the law firm's connection to Habitat has widened.

"Early in my work in site selection, I realized we had to have some legal help, and more than we had," Floyd said. So he did what many professionals with an extensive network did - he reached out to his former colleagues for help.

"When Dave retired in 1994, the Habitat relationship contact within Phillips Lytle moved to me and another partner here, John Pappano," said Morgan Graham, a partner in the firm.

Other employees of the firm also do volunteer work for Habitat, but typically do not have direct interaction with the families. The firm works to get the property into the hands of Habitat from whoever owns the building.

"We work in cleaning up the problems often associated with the (property) titles," Graham said.

He said the firm made a "business decision" to phase out the residential real estate side of its business, but still plans to give Habitat pro bono assistance in other areas.

Floyd says that the City of Buffalo has been one of the largest contributors when it comes to obtaining the homes and has acquired about 60 lots and built 70 new homes with help from John P. Hannon Jr., director of real estate for the City of Buffalo.

David Zablotny, executive director of Buffalo's Habitat for Humanity, hopes to ramp up recruiting efforts to draw more volunteers.

"For the last seven or eight years, we have averaged 14 to 15 houses per year. That would typically be four or five new-builds and 10 to 12 rehabs each year," he said. "We would like to get up over 20 houses (per year) in the not-so-distant future."

Zablotny said his group has enlisted the assistance of AmeriCorps to help it recruit additional bodies while he focuses on expanding the organization's fundraising. He estimates that a renovated home costs between $35,000 and $45,000 and requires 7,000 to 8,000 hours of work. A new home, though needing only about 4,000 hours to build, costs the group between $75,000 and $80,000.

Zablotny says for those who think they don't know the first thing about building a house, there are plenty of opportunities to make a difference.

"We can always use volunteers to help in the office, and we now have a resale outlet (501 Amherst St.) where all of the proceeds from sales go toward building homes. We utilize volunteers there as well," he said. "We are actually looking to open a second store, hopefully in the next few months, so there is plenty to do."

Asked about the pro bono work groups like Phillips offer, Zablotny said it is a critical part, albeit not as visible as the building process, of what Habitat does.

"Anytime we get things done pro bono, that just allows us to save that money and put it toward building another house," he said. "Legal work, for example, isn't mission-focused work, but it is work we need to get done in order to take ownership of a house or to close on a house at the end."

What drives volunteers to give up their evenings and weekends to toil building a house for someone they don't even know?

"You get instant gratification when volunteering on projects like this, different than your day-to-day practice of law," Graham said. His firm has worked with Habitat to acquire 61 residential properties, and Phillips staff have given roughly 750 pro bono hours over the last 10 years, which equates to $110,000 in savings for the organization.

"It's a responsibility of ours. You're part of the community, you're part of the fabric," Graham said. "It's business relationships and social relationships, it's civil-mindedness, and it's something I enjoy."