Thanks to Habitat for Humanity Sunshine Coast, three young families moved this month into brand new homes in Habitat Village on the Sunshine Coast Highway in Wilson Creek.
Two of the new families were at Habitat Village in early August as volunteers doing all of the last-minute tasks required to obtain occupancy permits.
“In a very short time, I found myself going from middle class family to working class single parent,” says Zarah Gale, who just moved into her new Habitat home with her daughters, Lucia Pond, 10, and Miranda Pond, 5. Because of Zarah’s changing circumstances and the red-hot real estate market on the Coast, she says she “was suddenly priced out of the rental market, even though I was working hard and I have a good job.”
Zarah works for Community Futures, which offers loans to small local businesses that can’t always qualify for conventional financing – sort of like what Habitat does for families that can’t qualify for conventional mortgages.
At one point, Zarah was paying 75 per cent of her income on rent, which made it impossible to provide a quality life for her two daughters and to ever have a hope of getting ahead. “My Habitat home is an opportunity and a blessing to keep my kids out of looming poverty.”
While Habitat families do assume the mortgage for their homes, their monthly payments are capped at 25 per cent of their income, meaning there is money left over for good food, transportation, clothing and extracurricular activities for her girls.
Ken and Rebecca Nelson and their kids Taylor, 7, Noah, 6, Malachi, 5, and Esther, 2, are another of the new Habitat families this month, and their eagerness to get a new start on their lives is plain to see.
New Habitat families are expected to log 500 volunteer hours in lieu of a down payment. Even though Ken has been working to establish his business, KSN Tiles, the couple put in their hours in less than 16 weeks – which worked out to about 40 hours per week – the equivalent of a full-time job, Rebecca says. It was definitely a labour of love for the couple. “I like that it is not a handout. It is much more gratifying when you can walk into your house and say, ‘We did that. We put those floorboards down,’” Ken says.
What does Habitat mean to this family? “We can settle down and grow as a family; we can finally figure out things financially. It will be our house! We won’t have to worry about our landlord selling the house, things not getting fixed. We will be putting our own money into our home.”
The Nelsons turned to Habitat after their landlord informed them he was selling their home to take advantage of rising prices, and they found other rental properties were scarce – especially for families with four young children.
Habitat for Humanity Sunshine Coast Village will be completed over the next few years and will house 14 families in seven duplexes. The group is planning future building sites and is always looking for more volunteers and community support.
For more information, contact: Laurie Vance, interim executive director. Habitat for Humanity Sunshine Coast, by phone at 1-604-966-7288 or email to executivedirector@habitatsc.ca
