Entrepreneur Starts Affordable-Housing Crusade

Tom Pirelli, a millionaire software entrepreneur, says he plans to build one million affordable houses for poor people within 10 years — more than four times as many houses as Habitat for Humanity has built over 30 years, reports Fortune Small Business magazine.

Mr. Pirelli’s Arial Foundation, in Riverwoods, Ill., was created to help urban youths. But after volunteering in Mexico to build a house for a poor family, “I was disappointed in the quality of houses being built: small and cheap as we could make them, plus it took 30 people two days to build,” says Mr. Pirelli.

Investing about $1-million a year to get the project going, Mr. Pierelli hopes eventually to build manufacturing plants around the world, reduce the price per house to $5,000, and employ local workers.