A hand up, Not a hand out
7-year-old Meghan Coughlin playing with her sisters Gwen and Jacqueline in their Bayside sub-standard apartment in Trenton.
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Bayside family Dan and Melanie Coughlin are 252 sweat equity hours away from moving into their new home.
The Habitat for Humanity home is currently under construction on Sidney Street in downtown Trenton.
The Coughlins, along with their three daughters Jaqueline, Meghan and Gwen, is the latest partner family of Habitat Prince Edward-Hastings and are expected to move into one half of the duplex in April 2015.
So far, they have completed 248 volunteer hours out of the 500 required into the building of their new home before they're able to move in.
The 500 hours don’t necessarily have to be spent in the building site. It can also include other initiatives such as volunteering at Habitat events or at the ReStore, a building supply store operated by Habitat.
Other family members can also contribute up to a 100 hours, Melanie explains.
"It's so cool. How many people actually get hands-on (experience) building their own house. It's nice to be able to say 'I built that wall' over there. It's very neat and personal," Coughlin said.
The application process took almost eight months before Habitat was able to deliver the good news to the happy couple last October.
Families interested in applying in the Quinte area are required to attend the free information session that occurs on the last Thursday of every month at the Habitat ReStore office on Bell Boulevard in Belleville. The next session is Feb. 26 at 7 p.m.
Selection criteria for home ownership is set out nationwide by Habitat for Humanity Canada (HFHC). Habitat offers affordable, sustainable, no-interest, no down-payment mortgages to low-income families, with monthly payments set at 25 per cent of gross income.
"We provide a hand up, not a hand out," family selection and partnering committee member Johanne Hodgson explains.
"They have to have a minimum income to be able to pay for their mortgage payments. There's a maximum amount, too. If they make too much, then they can really afford to get a mortgage at the bank," Hodgson explains.
"We want to put people in there that we know are going to succeed in owning their new home," Hodgson adds.
Other criteria Habitat looks for are the number of family members, families with special needs such as disabilities, debt load and families who are living in sub-standard housing.
For the Coughlins, the process was long but well worth the wait. The Quinte West municipality donated the land for the Trenton duplex, and for the first time in September 2014, Habitat for Humanity has partnered with the construction and renovation techniques program at Loyalist College to help the couple in building their new home.
"It's a fantastic marriage between two different organizations,"Hodgson said.
"They've been in the construction site since day one – Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. They're getting actual job experience, and we are getting volunteers to build the house," Hodgson adds.
The long-term partnership allows students to apply theories they have learned in class and gives them real world understanding of all the different aspects of constructing a home from the ground up, says program co-ordinator Tom Falcao.
"A real world product like this really gives all the students a special connection to the project and to the homeowners themselves because they're building a family a home who are obviously really excited and very happy they are receiving this home," Falcao says.
For the students, they not only get to see the physical application of building, but also the positive influences and actions that their good workmanship has on someone’s life.
The need for volunteers and donations is instrumental in the growth of Habitat for Humanity. Over the past 25 years, Habitat for Humanity Canada (HFHC) has logged more than 10 million volunteer hours, contributing to the successful completion of over 2,200 homes for low-income Canadian families. Internationally, HFHC has helped build thousands more homes.
For more information on how to apply, to volunteer or donate and more, visit www.habitatpeh.org.
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