Thankful for their new homes

Twenty years ago, Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity handed the keys to a new home to its first partner family.

In the two decades since, the organization, which builds affordable houses for low income families, has helped 101 families into homes.

And this month, two area families paid off their 20-year mortgages to Habitat.

The Wheeler family of Washington is one of those families - Sigrid Wheeler made her final house payment earlier this month. She said having a home to call her own has meant safety and stability for her children, a place to base the home day care that provided her income for years and a chance to help others as a foster mother.

'Without this house, I don't know where I'd be,” she said.

In addition to four biological children, Wheeler started taking in children as a foster mother in 2003.

'When we got the house, I wanted to give back and do something for others,” she said. 'That's why I did foster care.”

Between her own children and the children she has fostered, '16 children call me mom and call this house their home,” she noted.

Just as her household has grown over the past 20 years, so has Iowa Valley Habitat. When Wheeler moved into her home, it was under the Washington County Habitat for Humanity affiliate.

Iowa Valley Habitat took over that county's operations last year and now covers Johnson, Cedar, Iowa and Washington counties.

Each Habitat for Humanity affiliate operates independently under the auspices of the international Habitat for Humanity organization. When Iowa City's affiliate formed 22 years ago - it took two years of organizing, fundraising and building before the first house was completed - it was run entirely by volunteers and operated out of a cramped office borrowed from a local church.

A lot has changed since then. Today, eight full-time staff members and around 2,500 volunteers build six or seven houses a year, operating out of an 8,800-square-foot office adjacent to Iowa City's East Side Recycling Center.

The Recycling Center complex at 2401 Scott Blvd. SE, also is home to the Salvage Barn and Habitat's ReStore, which sells new and used building and housing materials, most of it donated.

In 2011, Habitat took over the city's Furniture Project, now also located at the Recycling Center, which provides furniture to low-income families for $1 to $5 an item.

The city bought the Recycling Center in 2006 after Iowa Valley Habitat agreed to partner with the organization. The ReStore previously was located in a warehouse in Coralville on the site that is now the Iowa River Landing development.

Iowa Valley Habitat Director Mark Patton said the goal is for profits from the ReStore to fully fund the affiliate's operating costs, which would allow every penny of donations raised to go directly to helping homeowners. With the Scott Boulevard location, which brings in more traffic than the Coralville warehouse did, they are about two thirds of the way to that goal, he said.

Patton, who came on board as director 12 years ago, said the organization's mission of providing simple, decent and affordable housing is not just about building homes. It's about providing a better life for families.

'Housing relates to everything,” he said. 'It relates to your personal security, to where your kids go to school, maybe even whether you can retire.”

He would like to see the organization engage in more advocacy for affordable housing issues and for environmentally friendly building.

Each new house the affiliate builds exceeds building codes to be as energy efficient as possible, he said. That's a win-win for the environment and the families, who have reduced energy bills as a result.

The group also builds ramps on existing homes and does other work to make homes handicap accessible. The goal is not just to get families into homes, but to help them stay there, he said.

Iowa Valley Habitat's new construction homes are designed to allow families to age in place - none are more than one story, for example.

Patton also would like to see increased financial education in Eastern Iowa so that more families qualify for Habitat's program. Habitat partner families do not receive free homes - rather, they receive a zero-interest loan, and Habitat sells them the host at cost.

Each family must meet several criteria to be eligible - along with demonstrating need, they must qualify financially by having good credit and a low debt-to-income ratio.

'Habitat is a hand up, not a hand out,” Patton said.

Families also must agree to put in 250 hours of sweat equity for each adult who will live in the home. For Wheeler and her husband at the time - they've since divorced - that meant painting, moving piles of dirt and learning how to install siding and shingles.

Her home was not new construction - it used to be a parsonage at Prairie Flower Baptist Church in Washington. Habitat dug a basement, poured the foundation and moved the house down the street to place on the new foundation. The volunteers worked alongside Wheeler and her husband to refurbish the structure into the house she's lived in for 20 years.

She's glad she has those skills, she said.

'They taught me how to take care of a house. We learned how to sand and varnish and trim doors and things like that,” she said. 'Even now, I'm not worried in taking a sink apart and seeing if I can fix it, because they helped me learn those things.”

It hasn't been all positive. As with any home, things have broken and needed to be replaced over the years. Wheeler, who now works as a para-educator, puts aside money when she can. She's saving for a new washer and dryer.

'I can't imagine becoming a homeowner is easy under any circumstances,” she said. 'Every little bit I can, I put aside.”

Wheeler said she has maintained relationships with the board members and volunteers who worked with her 20 years ago. After finishing their own home, she and her now ex-husband sponsored other families - helping them with paperwork and answering questions, and they have also volunteered on subsequent builds.

Her family's story is what makes Habitat worthwhile, Patton said.

'Homeownership - it's the American dream, right?” he said.