Each Habitat partner family must put in several hundred hours of “sweat equity,” helping to build others’ homes as well as their own. The sweat equity requirement involves families in helping others, and teaches them skills they can use later in maintaining and repairing their home. Families who turn to Habitat are typically struggling with substandard living conditions, coping with a high crime environment, are in overcrowded housing, and paying too much of their low incomes for rent. They come to Habitat looking for stability, opportunity and hope. Habitat for Humanity offers all those things, and more.
We build houses to create a foundation for people to grow into their full potential. Ultimately, we build much more than houses - the impact of homeownership is profound and lasting. Children's educational performance, employment and life satisfaction, are all improved through home ownership. Habitat homeowners come from many walks of life. They are clerical workers, housekeepers, retail workers, teacher and childcare assistants, taxi drivers, food service workers and industrial production workers, to name just a few. Habitat homeowners have the vision and fortitude to sacrifice their time and personal comfort to give their loved ones a safe, stable place to live.
Congratulations to Our Homeowners
We have built nine homes in Lincoln County, four in Lincoln City, a duplex in South Beach, and three in Toledo.
Providing a hand up, not a hand out
1. You must have a need for decent, affordable housing; for example, maybe your current housing is substandard, overcrowded, dangerous, or not appropriate for a handicapped family member
2. You must have the ability to pay our no interest mortgage payments. We target families whose annual income falls approximately within 35%-60% of the Area Median Income as determined each year by HUD. The percent of AMI may vary slightly from year to year depending on where we are building. For 2008, 35%-60% of the AMI would be annual incomes between approximately $16,600 and $28,500. Habitat provides a no-interest 20 or 30 year loan to our partner families.
3. You must be willing to partner with Habitat. This means being willing to put in 500 hours of "sweat equity" working on your house and other Habitat activities, working with a family mentor, and attending homeowner classes.
We do not keep a waiting lists for homes. We publicize the dates/locations/times of our Family Information meetings when we are ready to select a new family and post information in both English and Spanish.
Habitat for Humanity does not discriminate in the selection of families on the basis of race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or ethnic background.
