Former President Jimmy Carter and three members of a Soviet volunteer organization have agreed to work jointly on housing projects for the needy next summer in Washington state and the Soviet Union. Carter met Sunday with the Soviet delegation at his home in Plains. He is active in Habitat for Humanity, a group that builds homes for the working poor. ``One of the things they (the Russians) wanted to do was housing work for the benefit of low-income people with children, and Habitat fit the bill,'' said Millard Fuller, Habitat's executive director, who also attended the meeting with the Soviets. ``We decided that next summer a group of 10 Soviets will come to Yakima and work with 10 Americans on the Habitat project there for five or six weeks,'' Fuller said. ``Then the group will go to the Soviet Union and work on a similar project there.'' Habitat has conducted home-building projects in more than 300 U.S. cities as well as Canada, Australia and developing nations. The Soviets delagation are members of a private volunteer organization, the Soviet Peace Fund, and were invited to the United States by Ploughshares, a Seattle-based organization. The Soviet delegation included Svetlana Savitskaya, the first woman cosmonaut to walk in space. ``It's very important to look at each other eye to eye,'' said Ms. Savitskaya, who added that the project will help promote peace. ``This will help us to see there are not enemies among us but good friends.'' The project's ultimate goal is to have the Soviets and Americans working side-by-side in developing nations, organizers said, but no decision on that was reached.
