Single mom finds her natural habitat
Homes built on ‘sweat and heart’ help fight cycle of poverty
Marilyn Prior never thought she would own any home, let alone a brand-new one in Victoria.
But thanks to the Victoria chapter of Habitat for Humanity, the single mom and her children recently moved into a three-bedroom, 1,500-squarefoot duplex in a quiet Saanich neighbourhood on Vancouver Island — a huge step up from the 500-square-foot, one-bedroom suite in which they’d been living.
The working mother isn’t moving into social housing, though. Once she completes her last 40 hours of labour, the deed for the duplex will be in her name.
“It’s better than winning a lottery,” says Prior, a community health worker raising two boys, three-year-old Trevor and John, 7.
“Sure, if I won the lottery, I could go out and buy any house — but it would be something that has no meaning. Here, I put my heart and sweat into it. My friends helped, volunteers who I have never met helped, all to build my house.”
Prior and her immediate neighbour (another single mother in the other half of the duplex) live in the 17th and 18th house Habitat for Humanity has built in Greater Victoria. The sod turning was in June 2011. The houses were completed in March.
Habitat for Humanity’s mandate is to help lowincome families acquire their own homes.
It works with government agencies and businesses to obtain goods and services at low or no expense to drive down the cost of construction. Land donations help, too.
In this case, a vacant property was provided by B.C. Housing for the token sum of $10. The Canadian Institute of Plumbing and Heating and United Way of Greater Victoria were major sponsors. Additional support came from the Royal Bank Foundation, the Home Depot Foundation, the Victoria Real Estate Board, Zebra Design Group and the District of Saanich.
Zebra, known for its awardwinning, high-end residential designs, donated its design expertise.
The company’s challenge was to make a duplex fit into an established neighbourhood of single-family homes.
“Obviously, we needed to rezone. But we wanted a design that would be complementary — to enhance the neighbourhood — not something that would leave a negative taste,” says Rus Collins, lead designer at Zebra.
“We didn’t want to emphasize that it was a duplex, so we made the entrance of the second unit at a 90-degree angle to the street, so that it wouldn’t be obvious.”
Their end result was a sideby-side, two-storey structure that didn’t look much different from the houses that predominate in the district.
The homes were built with donated or substantially discounted new building materials. Funds to buy materials come in part from sales from the not-for-profit organization’s ReStore in Langford, B.C., which sells donated building material.
When possible, second-hand materials from the store were used in the construction to keep costs low.
The homes were built solely with volunteer labour, eliminating one of the largest costs of any home construction.
“We had a mix of skilled and unskilled workers,” says Gordon English, president of Genco Construction, who donated his expertise and time to oversee the construction.
Volunteers included skilled construction workers working after hours and on the weekend, apprentices who needed the experience, corporate work teams and friends and relatives of the recipient families.
Everybody coming on the work site was given a safety orientation and assigned tasks they were comfortable with. It could be construction, landscaping, painting or helping install insulation.
“It was very rewarding working with the families,” English says. “We got to know them and they engaged with the volunteers as well, getting to know the people helping them build their house.”
The recipients along with their relatives and friends are required to put in a total of 500 hours of “sweat equity” toward the home. It’s a requirement few recipients mind.
“You will never hear me complain about working toward my house,” Prior says. “Truth be told, I would have been willing to do more. I plan to volunteer when Habitat for Humanity builds their next house in Victoria.”
“Partner” families — the term Habitat for Humanity uses for the families they help — don’t need to come up with a down payment. Habitat for Humanity provides a nointerest mortgage (which includes the property tax) based on a maximum of 30 per cent of the family’s gross household income. The mortgage payments, in turn, provide seed money for the not-for-profit’s next local project.
English, who was happy to complete the project on time and on budget, said it’s all about giving families a leg up instead of a handout.
“It’s about breaking the cycle of poverty through home ownership.”