Linden benefits from Habitat repair blitz

Habitat for HumanityMidOhio is repairing 12 houses in six days in Columbus, and most are in the Linden neighborhood, where Cookie Bayless was standing on her porch Monday.

Her daughter, Michelle Dyson, lives in the Briarwood Avenue house. Soon, paint will be scraped off and new paint applied. New windows will be installed, as will a new electrical box

And a home that has been in the family for years will have a new look.

“Some of my best memories are here,” said Bayless, 64, whose aunt bought the house decades ago.

Dyson, 46, had made repairs in the more than two years she has lived there, but Habitat’s help makes that work easier.

And, she said, a program such as Habitat “makes the neighborhood look better.”

Habitat MidOhio intends to repair houses for about 85 families over a year. In this six-day blitz, 11 of the houses are in Linden, and one is on the Northeast Side.

The blitz kicks off projects that will be financed with $4.7 million raised through the Habitat Housing Initiative. By reaching that fundraising goal, Habitat will be on track to serve more than triple the number of families it usually serves.

In addition to home repairs, work includes 15 or 16 new homes and five or six home rehabilitations, said E.J. Thomas, Habitat MidOhio president and CEO.

Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther, who was at a kickoff event in Linden for the blitz, said that for families to succeed, some neighborhoods have to be changed.