Jimmy Carter revisits his first work site on the Lower East Side

If members of Congress were required to work at a Habitat for Humanitysite, the funding gridlock that has shut down the government might be solved, former President Jimmy Carter said Thursday.

Carter, 89, appeared with "the boss of my work camp, Rosalynn," his 86-year-old wife "who's been bossing me around for 67 years," outside Mascot Flats, a once derelict six-story apartment building in the East Village, which was the site of his first Carter Work Project 30 years ago. The efforts of the Carters and other volunteers created homes for 19 families, 12 of whom still reside in the building.

The couple's NYC appearance was part of a 30th anniversary tour held to celebrate the Carter Work Project and his service to Habitat for Humanity, which includes 1,000 volunteers renovating five Superstorm Sandy-damaged homes in Queens and repairing 10 in Staten Island.

Carter, an accomplished carpenter, sported a western belt with a gleaming silver "JC" belt buckle. He looked remarkably fit. Speaking amid a federal government shutdown, the 39th president said growing inequality in the U.S. is "giving us a bad reputation as a democracy." He called for "a very strict law to prevent banks from profiting [off] innocent borrowers."Affordable homes profit communities in many ways,Carter added. "It's a great contributor to education and better health care," and even community safety, because families who aren't living under the threat of homelessness are more likely to flourish and contribute to their neighborhoods. A Habitat for Humanity home "makes a whole family proud of itself," he said.

Don Kao, 62, one of the original buyers of a co-op at Mascot Flats, and the director of the non-profit Project Reach was on hand to testify how Habitat changed his life. "I would not be able to work at Project Reach and live in Manhattan," he said. But also, he said, "I raised my daughter in that building and housed at least three young people," who had nowhere else to go.

Asked how he felt about the area's gentrification, Carter deemed the phenomenon a mixed bag. "Once you go in and build decent homes, it gentrifies every neighborhood," he said, noting that the first co-op owners in Mascot Flats got their apartments for $30,000 apiece, with restrictions should they wish to sell them. The drop in crime that accompanies gentrification is a plus, but as areas become more desirable to wealthy people, housing is increasingly priced out of the reach of the less affluent.

"It's good and it's bad," Rosalynn added.