NBC unveiled “Humanity Plaza” outside Rockefeller Center on this morning’s Today Show. Matt Lauer, anchoring from the Gulf Coast, showed the need for housing, while Katie Couric held down the fort in NY.

Volunteers are building at least 100 homes in the plaza this week. “The frames of the houses will be constructed by volunteers in New York,” Duane Bates says in this story. “Then the houses will be broken down, put in trucks and shipped down to the area for families.” The houses will then be reassembled in Mississippi and Louisiana to house Katrina victims.

Chris Matthews is also hosting Hardball from “Humanity Plaza” tonight. The Today Show Web site has details about the effort, and MSNBC.com has more information about Habitat for Humanity’s “Home in a Box” program. Photos by MSNBC.com’s Jon Sweeney…