TRAVERSE CITY — Grand Traverse Habitat for Humanity is working on a project that will bring 13 homes to the region.
“We were living in my mother in law’s basement for a little over a year and a half and we heard about the habitat program, thought, hey, we’ve tried everything else. We’ve had a bunch of roadblocks,” said homeowner Jennifer Plamondon.
She is one of the newest homeowners in a new neighborhood being built up by Habitat for Humanity Grand Traverse Region.
“Let’s give it a try. So, we tried it out and luckily, we were beyond blessed and we got in our home and in the program within six months,” she said.
So far, two homes have been built and occupied, with Habitat now working on three more.
“Being able to have a home is what keeps you in a community. You come somewhere to work, you rent a house or you rent an apartment, but after a couple of years you’re starting to say, ‘Well, we really like it here. We want to stay. We’re going to buy a house.’ If there’s no house to buy, if the only house you can buy is $700,000, people don’t make enough to support that kind of thing,” explained Tom Kachadurian, Habitat director of marketing.
In addition to building the houses, Habitat also works to help anyone get housing without barriers through an application process.
“They buy their homes. They buy them with an affordable mortgage. We make sure that the price of the home that they have to pay is never more than 30% of their income,” said Kachadurian. “That means that over time, as they make more money, their mortgage payment stays fixed.”
Habitat is then able to make this happen through cost-effective materials and volunteers.
“There’s a lot of community involvement in these houses...We have core volunteers who devote pretty much their whole day,” said Kachadurian.
During the process, each family member above the age of 18 has to put in 200 hours of sweat equity. For Plamondon, that was no problem.
“As Habitat and these homes are growing and developing every day, we get the satisfaction of meeting our new neighbors and working with them,” she said.
And now her family is settling into what has been a dream for so long.
“They are constantly asking to have friends come over, having friends over to show them their new rooms, how they decorated. It’s just really a blessing,” said Plamondon.
The project is expected to be done by 2026. For more information on how to apply to get a home click here.