Cedar Rapids family receives home before holidays

CEDAR RAPIDS - Bridget Wilcox knows exactly where she's going to put the Christmas tree in her new home - a home she never plans to leave.

Wilcox on Friday was handed the keys to her tan, two-story home on 20th Avenue SW. The house was built with help from Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity, area businesses and her and her father's sweat equity.

'I've waited this many years for a home. I'm ready to stay here forever,” she said. '(It's important) having somewhere to look forward to coming home to every day that's ours. Nobody can take it away.”

Habitat officials, Mayor Ron Corbett, city council members and the business people who helped fund the house were on hand when Wilcox was handed the keys in a Friday afternoon ceremony.

Wilcox's son, Cordell, 18, already has his bedroom picked out. Her daughter, Sierra, 21, jokingly said she is negotiating with her mother as to how often she can visit.

Wilcox, 44, said she had nearly given up hope of ever owning a home. She'd run out of housing options and was tired of relying on other people to help her pay her leases.

She applied to Habitat for Humanity, and her application was accepted.

'Habitat opened a door,” Wilcox said. 'Without them, I didn't think anything was possible. We will look forward to having enough space for all of us together. ... We're ready to make new family traditions.”

Wilcox, who will make her mortgage payments to Habitat, said she'll never take homeownership for granted.

Jeff Capps, executive director for Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity, said donations and a $90,000 grant from the Wells Fargo Housing Foundation Priority Markets Program was key to funding Wilcox's home.

The grant is helping fund two other Habitat houses this year and three more in 2017. The program has awarded $6 million to stabilize neighborhoods across the nation since 2010.

'It really does help to have these kinds of grants where we can pair those dollars with several projects,” Capps said. 'We're really grateful to Wells Fargo. It's a big boost when you can have that impact for multiple families, multiple projects. That feels really good for everybody.”

Eric Idehen, vice president of community development at Wells Fargo, said he understands that supporting individual families boosts entire communities.

'No matter how small it is, it goes a long way to ... make this community a better place,” he said.

Wilcox said her new home brought her and her father, Roger, closer together. He volunteered more than 100 hours to help build the house and also volunteer on other Habitat projects.

The construction experience, she said, also taught her children the value of a strong work ethic.

And as for that Christmas tree, it's already strung with lights. It's going to sit in the living room by the window.

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