Table of Contents

II-6. Here Comes the Neighborhood

We can't afford to squander
a big percentage of the next generation.

Millard Fuller, Founder
Habitat for Humanity

Everyone Has A Story

For people who have been fortunate and/or able to provide the "good things in life" for themselves and their families, it is often a temptation to view those who have been unable as somehow deficient or slackers. It is easy to make judgments when we don't know another person's story, even though we assume that our own stories mitigate any shortcomings in our lives. There are countless reasons why a family may find themselves unable to buy a home under the normal conditions--and few of them have to do with unworthiness.  

For the most part, we tend to circulate in groups "of our own kind." Our relationships with people whose lives differ markedly from ours are often marginal at best, and nonexistent at worst. For many of us, working side by side with a Habitat homeowner family is the first opportunity we have had to dispel myths, clear up misconceptions, and relate on an equal basis with people whom we soon discover have as much to give to us as we do to them.

Habitat homeowners, we quickly realized, are very much like us. They have dreams and aspirations, they have strengths and weaknesses, they have talents and preferences. They are hardworking people who have overcome abusive marriages, setbacks from illnesses, lack of education, or any number of other obstacles that may have thwarted their financial progress. Perhaps they have even made mistakes along the way. But the dignity and determination with which they often have endured hardships and ill-fortune and still have bounced back to continue striving for a better life for themselves and their families is profoundly moving and inspiring. They are not people to be pitied. They are to be admired, and it is a privilege to offer them a hand up.

You Have Been Selected

The local affiliate's Selection Committee, following carefully prescribed guidelines, does the selection of prospective Habitat homeowners. The first step is to pass a credit check. Then the applicant's income and financial resources are evaluated to see if they fall within the income parameters--usually half the median income of the area. Taking into consideration their income, number of children, and other financial factors, as well as their current housing situation, the committee must be satisfied that the family has a genuine need and that they will be able to comfortably meet their mortgage obligations, for Habitat counts on that money going back into the pool to help finance other homes.  

In addition to housing need and ability to repay the zero-interest mortgage, a family also must demonstrate a willingness to partner in the Habitat program through sweat equity and working cooperatively with the affiliate.

Over 150 applications were received after it was announced in St. John's that five houses would be built to celebrate Newfoundland's 500th Anniversary. A little later, the Canadian Housing Authority donated two more lots and challenged the affiliate to build two additional homes. This was the reason for Wilmer Martin's solicitation in Americus--two more crews of volunteers also had to be rounded up.

Only 35 of the applicant families fit all of Habitat's qualifications; that list was then reduced to 12. This is when it gets tough for the committee and where individual circumstances weigh heavily on the decision. At length, they selected the seven fortunate families whom we would shortly come to know. For those families, the news that they had been selected was undoubtedly comparable to having the Readers Digest Prize Patrol knock at their doors. Their lives would soon take a dramatic turn, and the effects would be sweeping and far-reaching. Four of the families agreed to share their stories and what receiving a Habitat home meant to them.

Too Good To Be True

Rick Walsh was skeptical when his sister-in-law informed him and his wife Cindy that Habitat was taking applications. He believed that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. When Cindy asked him what they had to lose by applying, Rick couldn't come up with an answer, so he agreed to fill out the application. However, he persisted in maintaining his dubious stance, continually reminding his family that others might be in more need than they. In fact, he refused to let himself believe in the possibility throughout the process until six months later when Cindy called to tell him that Karen Alexander, the chairperson of the Selection Committee, and Shannie Duff, chairperson of the Cabot Habitat affiliate, were coming to meet with them at 10 a.m. the next morning. Rick felt pretty sure they weren't making a personal visit to inform them that they had not been selected.  

Rick and Cindy, both high school graduates, had been married 15 years and had three daughters ages 10, 8, and 4 at the time they applied for their Habitat home. With the birth of their first daughter, they made a decision that Cindy should stay home to raise the children. Rick held various management positions in the car rental business, but was only able to afford a three-bedroom townhouse in the provincial housing development for low-income families.

As often happens when a hundred families with very little income are concentrated in one area, the development became rundown and problems associated with discontent and hopelessness surfaced. Rick and Cindy raised their children in the church, teaching them to live by the Golden Rule. Nevertheless, the deteriorating circumstances in the surrounding area were forcing them to spend more and more of their time indoors. As Rick shared, "It was becoming very hard to hold on to our dream of some day moving our family to a better place."

The word "Congratulations" jumped out at them when they opened the envelope Shannie handed them (after their dog had greeted her by jumping up and placing his muddy paws on her skirt). All they could do was yell, "Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes!!!" In the afternoon, they picked up the children from school and together shared the good news with them. "When we told them," Rick related, "it was like informing them we had won a trip to Disney World."

Does Anyone Care Anymore?

Jerome Barry grew up in a small fishing village in Newfoundland where everyone helped each other. It was a natural way of life. However, in the big city of St. John's, it seemed that people were more concerned about themselves. He and his wife Elaine worked full-time and lived in rental houses for ten years, often feeling alone and discouraged. It didn't seem that anyone cared. They wanted very much to provide a home for their young daughter Jillian, but never seemed able to save enough for a down payment. All their money went to bills. They even tried living with Elaine's sister, but that wasn't the solution either.  

One Sunday, Jerome attended Elaine's church without her. Wilmer Martin spoke about Habitat that morning. Jerome's ears perked up when he learned that Habitat was planning to build five homes in St. John's. He couldn't wait to get home and tell Elaine that maybe there was some hope, after all, that they could own a house.

The application process was long, and the Barrys ended up number eight on the final list of twelve potential recipients. Then it was announced that two more houses would be added, but that news left the Barrys in the precarious position of "runner up!" Their only chance of realizing their dream was dependent on one of the seven recipients withdrawing their application--which is exactly what happened.

"I became discouraged and lost hope, but Jerome never did," Elaine says. When Shannie and Karen came to tell them they would receive the seventh home, Elaine says they "didn't show much excitement or say a whole lot" because their minds couldn't yet believe what they were hearing. Afterwards, they kept saying to each other, "Does this mean we are getting one of the homes for sure?" They never forgot how close they came to not being one of the fortunate ones.

Almost Out Of Faith

Cathy Carroll had lost faith in almost everybody. She was wondering where God was in her life. She had been a single mom for five years and didn't know how she could "continue to be enough for my four little angels." After losing her job, she worried about how she was going to support them and also hold up under the constant emotional strain.  

At first, Cathy was excited about landing a full-time job as diving coach for the Canadian National Diving Team. However, the time away from her children and having to travel six or seven times a year for competitions began taking its toll on all of them. Cathy became increasingly exhausted, and further strain was added by executive problems within the diving club.

As Cathy relates: "I had had it! It seemed that every effort I made to better my life turned sour. After being laid off, a business venture went sour. Everywhere I turned, it seemed, I fell into the clutches of very mean and untrustworthy people. I wondered what was wrong with me. I was trying so hard not to turn bitter and cynical, but there no longer appeared to be any reason for me to keep trying."

Cathy and her children moved from a government apartment into her parents' home so her rent money could go to them since they had been helping her as much as they could. However, it was neither an ideal nor long-term solution, given her four children and the limited space and privacy. Then, a friend told Cathy that she had seen a notice about applying for a Habitat house and thought she was a perfect candidate. Cathy didn't have much patience with her friend's "lottery-minded help," nor did she have the energy to fill out an application for what she considered a foolish pipe dream. Finally, after her friend's continual insistence, she reluctantly applied, never expecting anything to come of it.

Even when Shannie informed her she had been selected, she refused to allow herself to believe it. "I thought about how cruel it would be to get excited and then to have it taken away. I just didn't believe anything or anybody could be good." It was not until they began having meetings, fund-raisers and get-togethers with other Habitat families and the new "to be" families, and began working off some of their sweat equity preparing the sites, that Cathy accepted it was really true.

To Dream The Impossible Dream

After a failed marriage, Lois Kaulback, a single mom with a young daughter, thought that her life would take a happy turn for the better when she married Lewis in a small town outside of Edmonton, Alberta. However, not long after, a traumatic personal crisis forced them to sell most of their belongings and flee to Nova Scotia, where Lewis was from. The family headed there in a 1962 Comet, hoping to forget the hardships they had endured and praying for a fresh start. Jillian was nine, Becky was six months old, and Lois was pregnant with their third daughter.  

Lois stayed at home with the children while Lewis drove transport trucks, being gone for weeks at a time. Isolation, loneliness, and her mother's serious illness spurred them to move once again--this time to St. John's, Newfoundland, where Lois' family lived. There Lewis obtained another truck driving job which kept him away from home 28 days a month, but at least Lois had a loving support system. She baby-sat two small children and did the best she could to manage their single income and provide a loving and cozy home in their two-bedroom apartment, where she shared a bedroom with the two youngest girls since Lewis was home only a few days a year.

At 34 years old and after working since the age of 17, Lois had little to show for her efforts and felt like a failure for not being able to provide a real home for her daughters. Those feelings were inflamed when she overheard Jillian, then 13, tell her friends that she lived in a different apartment, because she was ashamed of hers. At that point, "my dream to have a home seemed virtually unreachable," Lois admitted.

Just two months after her mother's death, Lois' father told her he'd heard about the Habitat project on the radio. Not wishing to leave any stone unturned, Lois applied, even though she felt their chances were one in a million. After being informed that they were in the final twelve, she prayed constantly that they would receive a home if they were the most deserving. During the waiting period she could barely eat or sleep.

The suspense was intense when Shannie arrived and handed her the envelope. Lois could feel her heart skipping, and when she read the first few lines indicating that they had been accepted, she numbly stood reading the rest of the letter as tears streamed down her face. "I wanted to laugh; I wanted to cry. I guess I was in shock. I didn't know how to react. I remember saying, 'I don't know what to say.' I hugged Shannie and said, 'Thank you. I can't believe it. I can't believe it.' Then I called my two little ones from the living room and told them. We did a little dance. I would have to say the joy I felt in my heart at that moment was almost as great and wonderful as giving birth to my children.

"I held my little ones in my arms and, looking up to heaven, thanked God out loud for answering my prayers. Then I remember saying, 'Thank you, mom.'" Lois recalled her mother declaring, "If it's the last thing I do, Lois, I will help get you a home." Lois felt certain her mother had been "pushing pens from heaven" for them. When Lois' father arrived and heard the joyful news, he called Lewis, who was on the road. Lewis had to pull off to the shoulder when his father-in-law told him he would soon be needing a hammer. Jillian "just about hit the roof when she came home from school and heard the news. We felt like the luckiest people in the world!"

Building Community

On April 13th, 1997, the seven families met for the first time. Rick says, "It was very exciting because not many families get to know their neighbors months before moving into their new home. The nicest thing I remember thinking to myself when we met was that we all had been given a new beginning, and we all would be starting it together as neighbors. Oh, what a feeling!"  

During the several months before the actual blitz, the seven families put in far more than their 500 hours of sweat equity working on the rebuild. They spent evenings and weekends helping prepare the site and ready the materials. Working side by side, they shared their stories, their hopes, and their dreams.

The total of seventeen children in the families played together or helped, as they were able, alongside their parents. Rick and his children even pitched a tent and slept on their foundation one night. As the families worked together from May until the beginning of the blitz in August, clearing the property and helping put up the foundations and decking, a deep bond was formed. They were already a neighborhood before the houses were erected.

The theme of the blitz build, proudly displayed on our commemorative tee shirts, was "Here Comes The Neighborhood"--a fitting tribute to what had already been taking place on Hillview Drive East!