The housing crisis on Long Island is so bad that Mizanoor Rahman must share a cramped bedroom in his parents’ home with his wife and two young children even though he has a good job as an analyst with Nestle. They all sleep in a queen-size bed — there isn’t even enough room for a crib for their 2-year-old.

So it was a godsend when Rahman, a 35-year-old Suffolk County Community College graduate, was chosen from hundreds of applicants to obtain a house through Habitat for Humanity. The Christian nonprofit made famous in part by Jimmy Carter builds homes that working people can afford — as long they help build them too.

On Wednesday, Rahman, Habitat officials and more than a dozen volunteers held a "wall raising" event in Bellport where they erected the first wall of the small two-story, three-bedroom Cape the family should be able to move into before the end of the year.

And just as importantly, be able to afford.

"This is so exciting. I can't wait to help you guys build this house and be the owner," said Rahman, a Mastic resident. "I thought I will never get it but thank you for choosing me. I really needed it."

He is not the only one on Long Island who really needs a house. Applications for Habitat homes have soared by 600% since 2019, as housing costs have skyrocketed on Long Island after the COVID-19 pandemic, said Diane Manders, executive director of Habitant’s Long Island chapter.

The increase in applications is extraordinary, Manders said. "I think the need has become critical because since COVID the prices jumped so drastically, not only in homeownership but in rental prices, that people have to either leave Long Island or get into a program like ours."

Before the pandemic, Habitat would get 40 to 50 applications for each new house going up, she said. Now they receive 250 and must stop taking applications after two weeks. If they left the application period open, they would easily get 1,000, she said.

"The people now that apply ... you would have never thought with their financial ability they would be coming to Habitat," said Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico, who attended the event. "But the situation is such that the cost of housing is so expensive that you're seeing people applying" even though they have good jobs.

The house going up on Davidson Avenue is the 103rd one built by Habitat in Bellport, the community where the group has been most active, Manders said. Habitat has built 248 houses on Long Island since the group started here in 1988. It puts up between four and six houses a year.

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