Habitat provides a safe haven

Providing six houses for needy families this summer, Sisters Habitat for Humanity is working at record pace to guide neighbors with shaky circumstances onto solid ground.

Terri Gallegly, 42, who owns a quaint, Habitat-built, two-bedroom home on Pine Tree Lane, tells how Habitat and the Sisters community gave a needed refuge to her family.

A dishonest boyfriend, a nomadic lifestyle and the careful decisions wrought by a single mother brought Terri Gallegly to Sisters for the first time at age 23 with her four-year-old daughter, Jackie. Having previously lived out of her car in Texas, Gallegly parted from her boyfriend and eventually moved to Sisters not knowing anyone, and unsure where she would work or live.

Fourteen years later, after living in several rentals (including an icy-cold motor-home in Sisters where she said the curtains and clothes froze to the walls), Gallegly purchased her own house through Habitat for Humanity for $72,000 in May of 1998.

Sitting on her porch swing with her four-year-old granddaughter on her 2.5 acres of scenic property, Gallegly smiled at the safe haven she's found for herself, her husband of two years, Larry Gallegly, her 23-year-old daughter, Jackie Bradley and her granddaughter, Chelsea.

Jackie and her daughter moved into the spare bedroom last year, while Jackie started school.

"This is a safe environment," Gallegly said. "It's a lot of security for her (Chelsea) because grandma and grandpa have always been in one spot. When you rent, there is always the possibility the owners could come back, raise rent or change something. When you own, there's always a home for the kids to come back to."

Gallegly said a neighbor had to convince her to apply to Habitat in 1996 because Gallegly thought it was welfare and didn't want to do it. When she got selected, she was working for Weitech, a pest-control manufacturer in Sisters.

She and Larry Gallegly were renting from Larry's boss at R.L. Schaefer Construction.

"I had checked into Fannie Mae and every bank I could find, but I had no credit so the banks and mortgage companies wouldn't even talk to me because I didn't have enough money," Terri said. "Habitat was pretty much the last resort. If we had to pay interest on our loan, it would double the house payment and we would be scraping to make ends meet."

Habitat for Humanity selects homeowners who live or work in Sisters, meet income requirements, and are willing to give 500 hours of volunteer work. Habitat, which sets no-interest mortgage plans based on income, put Gallegly on a 20-year mortgage plan for the $72,000 home.

Gallegly said she was relieved to be able to purchase a house and humbled by the means, which involved two groups of college students from Minnesota who flew to Sisters for their Spring Break to build Gallegly's home.

"It is the most humbling experience a person can have to let kids pay their way to fly out of their state and spend their Spring Break to build your home," Gallegly said. "They help not because they have to but just because they want to. "They didn't have enough work to keep them busy on my house so they went to my neighbors to do landscape. She gave them $100. A month later, she got the check back in the mail.

"That touched me," Gallegly said. "They do a lot more for families than just build houses. They did for me and they still are."