Yvette Flores Receives Austin Habitat for Humanity’s Hancock, McGill & Bleau Housing Leadership Award

On Thursday, October 28, Realty Austin Co-Founder Yvette Flores received the prestigious Hancock, McGill & Bleau Housing Leadership Award. For over ten years, Flores has made it her mission to address the affordable housing crisis in the Austin community.

This is an issue that is deeply rooted in and personal to Flores’ own family and upbringing. In her recent interview with Austin Woman Magazine, she recalls how important the stability and safety of her own childhood home was for her overall development. In her recent acceptance speech, Flores also said, “I grew up in a home no bigger than a typical 3 bedroom Habitat home but my mom knew that having a home for her daughters would be the biggest constant in their lives, bringing safety, security, and community.”

Through Realty Austin’s longstanding, strategic partnership with Austin Habitat for Humanity, Flores has sought to offer others that same safety, security, and community that she and her family had growing up. Since 2012, she, her team of 500+ agents, industry partners, and friends have raised nearly 1 million dollars to support the work of Austin Habitat. And Realty Austin agents and staff have donated more than 20,000 volunteer hours to help make these homes a reality for local families.

“Writing a check is not enough for me, it should not be enough for anybody,” Flores said, “[because] we’re all put on this earth to do big things and to help each other out.” 

That’s why year after year, her work is all about inspiring others to lead and give back to the community in a big way. This philanthropic spirit is something that Flores says she inherited from her mother. She went on to say that her mother instilled the notion in her and her siblings, “ [that] if you have something, give it, share it, do whatever you need to do to help others succeed.”