Owning a Habitat home takes work

The selection of a family for a Habitat for Humanity home is just the start of a process that can take nearly two years to complete. Conventional home ownership has a family moved in, unpacked and rearranging the landscaping in the time it takes a Habitat family to build enough “sweat equity” to break ground on their homesite.

After that, there are months of working with the volunteers who are building the home and contributing more sweat equity into the house — in many cases holding together a job and family all the while.

Sisters Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Sharlene Weed says that qualifying often provides a sense of stability to families who have not experienced that in their housing situations.

Once they are in their homes, with a mortgage that they know is manageable, they can start to focus on a family’s other needs.

The Sisters Habitat affiliate has built 31 homes since 1991, and of those, only five have changed hands. Three were sold to other Habitat families and two sold on the open market, according to Weed.

There are three main criteria a family must meet; first is a need for housing. Present housing must be inadequate in terms of soundness, space for the size of the family, or with a rent that is too high for the family income to sustain.

Second is the ability to pay a Habitat mortgage. Those mortgages average around $450 per month, including taxes and insurance. Third is willingness to partner with Habitat, putting in the 500 minimum hours of sweat equity required, understanding that it is a volunteer organization and realizing that they will be a public family for a while as their home is being built.

Throughout the process, each family is assigned two “family partners.” The family partners commit to walking the family through each step of the long and sometimes arduous process of home building. They meet monthly with the family, and when building is underway, they are there on an almost daily basis to answer questions and be the liaison between the family and Habitat. “They are important by being the contact between the worksite and the family,” said Weed.

Their encouragement is invaluable in the whole process, she added.

The design standards of the homes are set by Habitat for Humanity International. Some flexibility is allowed to comply with city regulations, said Weed.

The family must show a stable income for at least a year, said Weed.

The Habitat mortgage payments go into a revolving fund in Sisters, used to build more homes in the town. Also, the Habitat Thrift Store exists to support the building program and to provide funds for staff salaries.

The biggest thorn in the side of Sisters Habitat for Humanity is the lack of affordable land within the Habitat area, which is the Sisters School District. To that end, the organization has deemed it necessary to build townhomes more recently.

“It is an adjustment for us and for the families to have to build townhomes,” said Weed.