Habitat for Humanity
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By RACHEL POMERANCE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 08/06/08
"Praise the Lord" is the way Dora Bailey answers the phone.
It's an appropriate greeting for Bailey, an introduction to how she sees the world and her role in it.
Habitat for Humanity |
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| Habitat volunteers work on a house in Snellville. | |||
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So she would visit hospitals for years, praying for whoever needed prayer. And on one occasion in 1992, at what was then Scottish Rite Hospital, she learned of a boy in a coma with no visitors.
Bailey decided she'd correct that, and nearly every day for almost a year she visited and prayed for 7-year-old Clifton Marquis Hunter, his body deadened from a car that struck him when he crossed a street in Rome. Eventually, Hunter's coma released some of its grip, Bailey took over his foster care, and, in an act she calls a blessing, acquired a handicap-accessible home from Habitat for Humanity in Norcross for the two of them.
"This is the best thing ever happened to me, us having a nice house," she said, explaining that their old mobile home in Buford was "a little in bad shape," that you could see mice living beneath a hole in the entrance floor. "That was scary," she said.
Bailey still lives with Hunter in the Habitat home they moved into 12 years ago, incidentally on Hunter Street.
Her story will air Aug. 17 on People TV, a public access station, in a promotional video for Gwinnett Habitat for Humanity's 20-year anniversary celebration Aug. 30 in Tucker. The festival will take place at Gwinnett Habitat's first construction site for townhomes.
Over the 20-year span Gwinnett Habitat is approaching 90 homes built and should reach that number by September. There has been only one foreclosure.
The anniversary celebration will take place at the construction site for 23 townhomes, located on a parcel of land with room for future home construction.
"We have finally a land bank we've never had," with a total of three years worth of land on which to build 40 homes, said Gwinnett Habitat's executive director, Charles Craig.
The economic downturn has led to more land for sale, but not necessarily land that works for Habitat, development director Beth Stubbings said. "Some of it is zoned for houses that are much too large for our families to afford," she said, so "when we can get a plot of land that can accommodate more than one family, we really need to take advantage of that."
There are, still, plenty of challenges.
Like finding sponsors for those homes in this economy, Craig said. The three homes slated for construction at the festival site include one sponsored by Bank of America, another sponsored by CareerBuilder.com and the third by a coalition of donors. Coalition builds are happening more frequently, he said. "We're still getting it done," but "it's not as easy as it was before."
Gwinnett Habitat will also be pursuing, for the first time, "rehab" builds with grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development distributed by the county, he said. "They're going to be in neighborhoods that are a little bit at risk, and you're trying to keep stability in those neighborhoods."
The homes cost the nonprofit between $120,000 and $150,000 to build, and each housing project typically requires a $75,000 sponsorship.
Families with an income between 25 percent and 60 percent of the county average are eligible to apply. That would translate to a family of four with an annual income between $17,000 and $40,000, Stubbings said.
But the selection is based on more than one's financial standing.
Applications include a credit and criminal background check and an assessment of whether the homeowner can afford a Habitat mortgage, which runs between $200 and $600 per month.
Then, there are site visits to applicants' current homes to weed out the needy from the neediest. Those living amidst violence or health hazards, for example, become priorities. And finally, applicants must work for their home through Habitat's "sweat equity" program. A single parent must spend 250 hours helping build other Habitat homes, and two parents must devote a total of 350 hours, Stubbings said. Gwinnett Habitat's orientations can draw as many as 100 or more families. But only about 20 from each orientation are added to the waiting list. And it takes anywhere from one to three years to go from the waiting list into a new home, Stubbings said.
"I think that's why most of our families are still in their houses," Stubbings said, "because they've really worked hard to earn that home."