Irene Graeta had to search for just the right word in English to describe the thrill of getting a Habitat for Humanity home.
“I feel very good about Habitat. It is too much. I like it too much. Muy Bueno,” she said as she labored over a hot stove at the Oct. 7 Habitat for Humanity dinner.
Habitat just finished three homes off Dana Street on Dick Williams Way in Fort Bragg, including that of Graeta, and is working to get two more homes in that area closed in before winter with completion planned by next summer. The families have already been chosen for the Dana Street area homes.
Teresa Hurtado, who has lived in Fort Bragg for 23 years and works as a housekeeper, will get her first home ever, along with her family, which includes two children.
Habitat for Humanity helps families get affordable homes, requiring them to put their own sweat equity into the project. Hurtado helped her future neighbor Graeta build her home and Graeta and her family will do the same, in old-fashioned barn raising style.
“It is always worth it. You come home tired and work on the house and it is worth every bit of the effort,” Hurtado said.
“Without Habitat I would never have had a house.”
Mendocino Coast Habitat for Humanity is currently in negotiations for a project on South McPherson in Fort Bragg that could have 11 condominiums, according to Gayanne Alexander, president of the Habitat board. Habitat plans to launch an application drive, with applicants chosen by need, income, credit and family size. Applicants must meet low income guidelines set by the federal Housing and Urban Development agency, she said.
The Mexican dinner fund-raiser offered mountains of freshly made enchiladas, pork and chicken tamales, chips and salsa, a special cactus salsa recipe that was a crowd favorite and, of course, lots of rice and beans.
“You come to support Habitat but you stay for the food,” said Jim Jackson of Mendocino.
“The chili verde, tamales and enchiladas all are excellent. I see a lot of my friends here each year and it”s a great organization,” he said.
“It”s a great way to create ownership, the people building their own project right from the beginning.” said Yarrow Summers. “This is a very important organization for people who might not have otherwise ever been able to purchase a home.”
Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry, according to the organization”s Website. HFHI seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action, the Website says.
Habitat has built more than 200,000 houses around the world, providing more than one million people in more than 3,000 communities with shelter. HFHI was founded in 1976 by Millard Fuller along with his wife Linda.
Through volunteer labor and donations of money and materials, Habitat builds and rehabilitates simple, decent houses with the help of the homeowner families. Habitat houses are sold to partner families at no profit, financed with affordable loans. The homeowners” monthly mortgage payments are used to build more Habitat houses.
