Merrillville woman looks forward to working on own home
Leslie Corona stood on a vacant Merrillville lot, an umbrella shielding her from the freezing rain, her mind on a sunny future here for herself and her 3-year-old son.
“Come into the living room,” she beckoned with a huge smile, pointing to a spot on the triangular lot.
“We can have a fire pit in the backyard,” she said.
Best of all, her son, Onitsed (Oni) will have his own bedroom.
“I’ll be giving him a home and his own a bedroom, his own space. That’s the part I’m most excited about,” Corona, a single mom, said.
Corona, 31, is the recipient of the latest house to be built by Habitat for Humanity of Northwest Indiana.
Work will soon begin on an approximately 1,280-square-foot, 3-bedroom, 1 ½ bath ranch style home, said Dawn Michaels, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Northwest Indiana. It will be the third and last Habitat house on a short street in Merrillville located next to a bike path, which Corona said she and Oni have already used.
The nonprofit is partnering with Lowe’s on this and about 300 other projects supporting womenled households in the U.S. and Canada as part of International Women Build Week (March 8-15), an effort to raise awareness of the global need for safe and affordable housing for women.
According to Habitat for Humanity, women have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, from job losses to evictions to foreclosures. The National Women’s Law Center said 80% of U.S. jobs lost during the pandemic were held by women.
“In a year presenting so many challenges, we are encouraged to see how partners like Lowe’s have risen to the occasion to help
women and families right here in Lake County, Indiana find strength, security and stability through shelter,” Michaels said.
Corona said words can’t express how excited she is to begin working on her own home, the first she will own.
She and Oni have been renting a small 1-bedroom guesthouse in Gary from her parents.
“I moved to Indiana from Illinois four years ago and renovated it. I was seven months pregnant and plastering walls,” Corona said.
“We ’ r e definitely outgrowing it fast,” she said.
Corona said she started the application process with Habitat last year. She is employed by the local Habitat agency, but said that had no bearing on her being accepted. She said all the board hears is the applicant is a single mother with so many children, no names.
Michaels said applicants need to have a monthly income that falls within a certain range and a need, whether it’s due astronomical rent or energy bill or mold and other issues.
Habitat house recipients are required to put in 300 volunteer hours, either working on their own house or another Habitat house, or volunteering in one of its two ReStore locations, and need to take a course on finances, Michaels said.
Corona has already started working on another Habitat house and said she can’t wait to work on her own, as well.
The houses are energy efficient, ensuring lower gas and electric bills, and come with appliances. They don’t have garages, but small sheds are built on-site to house lawn and garden equipment.
Corona said volunteers will start working on wall panels for her house in April. Michaels said she hopes to have Corona and Oni in their house in October.