Habitat Family Moves In
At our latest home dedication, our community outreach director, Joy Overacker, outlined the three criteria we use when evaluating potential Habitat home owners.
One is a willingness to partner, which means a willingness to participate in our program which entails a lot of paperwork, as well as what we call “sweat equity”. Sweat equity refers to the required number of hours each partner family must spend volunteering to work on the construction of their or someone else’s Habitat home.
The second is an ability to pay. There is a common misconception that Habitat gives homes away for free. Habitat partner families must be able to pay for a low-cost affordable mortgage which we help them to acquire. This mortgage can be no more than 30% of the household income.
This brings us to our final criteria, need. A partner family must show that they have a need for decent affordable housing. This often means that the housing that Habitat families are living in when they come to us is badly in need of maintenance or repair. There are countless stories of Habitat families across the country who needed new affordable housing because of a mold problem in their home that was adversely affecting the health of their children. However, this is not the only eligible need a partner family can have. The shortage of affordable housing* units across the state means that often low to middle-income families are faced with a choice to either settle for subpar dilapidated housing or go the other direction and pay more than 30% of their income on housing.
When families pay more than 30% of their income on housing something else inevitably doesn’t get paid. Faced with this situation what would you choose? A decent roof over your head, healthy food for your family, continuing education for your children, or reliable transportation? This is a constant stress on the family not just financially, but emotionally and physically as well.
Maria and her children lived this reality. Maria works hard for a local non-profit in Corning. But still, in order to provide a decent place for her and her children to live and thrive, Maria was paying approximately 70% of her income between rent and utilities. Take a moment to run that calculation on your own income, and imagine paying for all of your other expenses while still trying to save for your future on just the remaining 30% of your income.
As our Executive Director, Steve Daniels said at the dedication, “We build for days like today. We build so we can put smiles on the faces of families that worked just as hard on their dreams as we do on these homes.” Now Maria and her children Mireina, Enisa, and Leo get to enjoy that dream come true. With the relief of a little wiggle room in their budget, they can now get about the work of building strength, stability, and self-reliance.
This dream-come-true was made possible by the hard work and dedication of our volunteers as well as the financial support of so many donors. To help Steuben County Habitat for Humanity continue to build safe, decent, and affordable housing in our area, consider donating today or setting up a recurring monthly donation. Thank you for your support!
* According to Habitat for Humanity International New York State is short 600,000 affordable housing units and one out of every 5 households in New York State spends half or more of their income on housing. (source)
