Bob Calhoun, who expanded paths to affordable housing for struggling families in the Florida Keys, is leaving his post as head of Habitat for Humanity of Key West and Lower Florida Keys. The 58-year-old is moving to North Carolina to take the helm of the Cape Fear office of the international nonprofit that builds homes in exchange for buyers' sweat equity.

Mark Moss, Habitat's local construction coordinator, will be interim director until Calhoun's replacement is hired sometime this month. The post will pay the new executive director $60,000 a year, Calhoun said.

When he arrived in Key West as the group's executive director in 2005, Calhoun had little time to focus on the group's primary mission, which is to build single-family homes for families who not only qualify for interest-free loans, but agree to provide "sweat equity" in the building of their home or future homes alongside other Habitat volunteers.

Instead, Calhoun and other hammer- and paintbrush-wielding volunteers went to work repairing homes flooded by Hurricane Wilma.

"What we did for the first 16 months after I got here was repair better than 160 flood-damaged homes and community centers," Calhoun said. "We had between 60 and 100 volunteers every day, ripping out drywall, insulation and flooring, and restoring the homes so they were decent and habitable."

Not only was it a good way to get to know the skilled carpenters, electricians, plumbers, landscapers and other local volunteer tradespeople who pitch in for the group, Calhoun said it gave him a sense of what the Lower Keys needed.

Accomplishments
Calhoun said he has since tailored Habitat's mission in the Lower Keys by:

• Moving the headquarters from Big Pine Key to Key West in 2006 to provide more activity in the area. Many Habitat projects have centered in Big Coppitt and Cudjoe keys, the site of 12-home and 16-home projects, respectively. Calhoun has launched more projects in Key West and Stock Island.

"We needed to be known as a Key West organization," he said. "When I came on board, it was considered an upper Lower Keys organization. We still have an office in Big Pine, but it's smaller."

• Developing a stronger organization. "People who volunteer since 2005 have grown with the program and have assumed greater roles with the program over time," he said. "Staff also are taught more and grow with the organization."

• Buying and renovating rental units in addition to single-family homes. "Because single-family homes are often too expensive to renovate," Calhoun said, Habitat has been renovating multi-unit dwellings, including 29 one-, two- and three-bedroom affordable rental apartments that house 29 families in the Lower Keys, including in Key West. Habitat just completed "gut renovations" of three four-unit buildings on Stock Island that will eventually be leased at reduced rates, he said.

• Launching the "Brush with Kindness" program in January, Calhoun said. The home-repair program uses Key West High School students and other volunteers who will visit such neighborhoods as Bahama Village to clean up yards, paint fences, fix siding and perform other exterior work. "Valspar Corp. donates all the paint nationwide for such work," Calhoun said.

Accolades
Debbie Batty, vice president of the local Habitat board of directors, said the nonprofit built its first entire neighborhood -- the 12-home Bayside Landing project in Big Coppitt Key -- under Calhoun,

"Without him, the homes on Bayside would not have been built," Batty said.

She also credited him with overseeing Habitat's ReStore second-hand furniture shop in Big Pine, where donated household goods and building materials are sold for Habitat's coffers.

"He was an invaluable leader of our local organization," Batty said.

Lili Huergo, a former grant writer who became executive director of the Habitat for Humanity of the Middle Keys in 2007, said Calhoun helped her learn her new job.

"Bob was a godsend to me," Huergo said. "We coordinated to tackle county issues, such as getting the Monroe County Land Trust to donate land or to purchase land for us."

Calhoun also helped the Middle Keys and Key West Habitat groups receive sales tax money from the state, Huergo said, a first in the Keys.

"Over the years that's meant about $800,000 for the Middle Keys," she said.

Calhoun helped Huergo with mortgage forms, insurance paperwork and other documents required for each Habitat home project. Habitat closings require lawyers, loan papers and everything else traditional home closings require.

"He is a mentor to me," she said. "I had no idea what the job had in store for me. I told him that when I grow up, I want to be just like him."

Calhoun said he would help the new director learn his or her job, too.

"I'm not going to be that far away," Calhoun said. "I'll participate in meetings via Skype, and I'll come back once my successor is in place to help orient that person."