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Post-Dispatch 9/14/2003
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Habitat opens doors for Hillsdale homeowners |
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Habitat opens doors for Hillsdale homeowners
By PATRICIA RICE
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
09/14/2003
You'd have thought Kenny Curtis, 1, was watching a circus the way he attentively stood at his house's screen door fascinated by the activity Saturday on his street in Hillsdale.
Kenny was particularly intrigued by the way Lilly Connett, 19, a University of Chicago freshman, rolled out strips of grass sod on the mud slope in front of Thecco Jackson's new house. Connett's mud-to-grass act seemed magical to Kenny.
He watched as Christen Dell, 15, and Claire Mathias, 16, and 10 schoolmates from Nerinx Hall in Webster Groves shoveled debris and dirt from the middle of the intersection of Mount Avenue and Archie Moore Street. Their style was madcap but the trash neatly ended up in Sister Roberta Hudlow's wheelbarrow.
Habitat for Humanity St. Louis brought excitement to Kenny's street. Every Saturday since May, hundreds of volunteers have worked side by side with 11 needy families to build 11 new houses in the 6400 and 6500 blocks of Mount. Three families moved in Saturday; two more families move this week.
Habitat is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry that finds local partners to provide volunteer builders and funding. It has built 134 houses in the region since 1986. Families whose annual income is between $12,075 and $39,850 can apply for a new house. The Hillsdale houses will be on a tour this week for corporations and faith groups interested in building houses next spring and summer.
Volunteers talk about how exciting it is to use their hands to build a house, then see a family move in.
"Fathers and daughters are really having fun doing this together," said Richard Lammert, who coordinated teams of daughters and fathers who belong to the Veiled Prophet organization that completed Jackson's house Saturday. Owners must join the construction crews.
"We built this ourselves every Saturday from the basement to the roof," said new owner Darlene Gee, 34, a nursing assistant. In lieu of a down payment, she and the older of her five children had to put in 450 hours of "sweat equity" for her four-bedroom house valued at $78,000. Next month, she'll start paying $277 a month on her interest-free 25-year loan.
Reporter Patricia Rice:
E-mail: price@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8221
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