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“We’re really blessed to have a place where we can feel at home,” says mom of five Regina as she reflects on her time as a Habitat homeowner in Redwood City. She has lived in her Habitat Greater San Francisco home for 11 years.
“I am really happy being a homeowner and my kids feel happy too because they can have their own space. We feel secure in our home – nobody can come and just tell us ‘you guys have to move out’”.
That security isn’t always easy to come by in the Bay Area, where housing costs have risen to the point where it is an increasing challenge for our essential workers and their families to make ends meet.
“I have seen a lot of friends leave San Mateo Country because they can’t afford to pay rent.”
The Habitat model aims to help these families. We provide access to affordable homeownership so that working families benefit from a $0 down, 0% interest mortgage and have housing costs capped at no more than 30% of household income.
Like all of our homeowners Regina embarked on what we call ‘sweat equity’ – putting in hundreds of hours of her own time building homes alongside other families and an army of volunteers.
“The first time I came onto a construction site it was very exciting,” she says, “I was working with my family to build our own home and also building the homes of other people too.”
We were helped by people from churches and community groups that came to build. It was a blessing to get to know these people who would spent their time for others like me. I didn’t feel alone.”
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