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« : July 23, 2008, 08:16:54 AM » |
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Habitat’s many hands
By Dan McLean, Free Press Staff Writer
MILTON — Tina Draper and her family will move into a new house on Barnum Street this fall.
Five houses are being built on Barnum Street in the largest effort conducted by Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity, said David Mullin, the group’s executive director.
Many of the volunteers who will build the Milton homes work for GE Healthcare Information Technology in South Burlington. The company, formerly known as IDX Systems, is deploying 700 of its 800 employees on four-hour shifts during a two-week period — generating 2,800 hours of labor.
GE Healthcare’s contribution in labor is the single largest group that has ever helped Green Mountain Habitat, Mullin said, “It’s phenomenal.”
Draper and her husband live at her parents’ home in Fairfax with their three children, two of whom must sleep in the living room because they don’t have a room of their own. The family tried to buy a home, but couldn’t make the finances work, she said.
“Our credit wasn’t good enough by any means,” she said Tuesday, watching her future home be built by the Green Mountain Habitat volunteers.
The Vermont Housing Finance Agency “couldn’t help,” she said, and directed them to Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity.
“You go through rounds,” she said of the application process with Green Mountain Habitat, which examines several factors, including household income. “They delete you if it’s not high enough or if it’s too high.”
The group then inspects where applicants live to determine whether housing is needed, she said.
Twenty-five applicants qualified for the five, three-bedroom homes being built in Milton, Mullin said. Draper’s family was ultimately selected.
It was welcome news.
“We were excited. We were just thrilled,” she said.
The Vermonters selected to buy the properties are offered a reduced rate since the bulk of the labor to build them was free. Buyers pay a zero percent interest rate for 25 years, Mullin said. The Milton properties will sell for $100,000 to $130,000 but are worth $180,000 to $220,000, he said.
If the property is resold, the owners keep 25 percent of the appreciated value and retain the mortgage payments they have made. Green Mountain Habitat has the right to buy it first in order to resell the home to another qualifying family.
In all, the five homes being built in Milton cost about $800,000.
Including these homes — three of which will be completed this fall — the Vermont affiliate of Habit for Humanity has built 56 homes since its founding in 1984, Mullin said. The last two homes on Barnum Street will be completed by the end of next year. Green Mountain Habitat operates in Chittenden, Franklin and Grand Isle counties.
About 80 GE Healthcare employees, all wearing red GE shirts, scurried around the construction site Tuesday morning, digging ditches, working on foundations and cutting plywood.
“I am not a handy guy,” said GE Healthcare IT’s CEO and President Vishal Wanchoo, taking a break from applying a coating to foundation cinderblocks. “It’s been a terrific team exercise.
“We felt this was a good program. It’s very active in Vermont,” Wanchoo said.
GE Healthcare was not the only entity to financially support the endeavor. Lowe’s Cos. Inc. gave $50,000; Thrivent Financial, a Lutheran investment organization, provided $125,000, Mullin said. In addition to providing labor, GE Healthcare donated $11,500, he said.
The Vermont Housing and Conservation Board also provided a $125,000 grant, Mullin said.
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