Mahaska County Habitat For Humanity Looks To Inform

Mahaska County Habitat for Humanity held an informational meeting on Tuesday for those interested in learning more about the program.

Mahaska County Habitat for Humanity held an informational meeting on Tuesday for those interested in learning more about the program.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Mahaska County Habitat for Humanity held an informational meeting on Tuesday that was designed to help familiarize the public on how Habitat can be of assistance to a family. The goal is also to help inform potential volunteers about the organization as well.

Habitat for Humanity accepts applications for new homes during a limited window, and the board then accepts or rejects the applications.

One of the things that can lead to a rejection of an application is the inability to repay. It’s a common misconception that the homes are of no cost to the home owner. Many materials are donated, and volunteer labor helps to keep the costs down, but the homeowner will ultimately have a mortgage on the home. Those mortgages on average are $300.00 per month with a mortgage life of 300 payments. If the homeowner stays in the home for 10 years, a portion of the loan that is held in a second mortgage is then forgiven.

A requirement of the applicant will be to put sweat equity into the home by donating 250 hours of their time into the project or community service if they are unable to work on the home.

An applicant must also be willing to be identified as the recipient of a habitat home, and make an initial $100.00 down payment on the home, which can also be made in payments.

Locally, Habitat for Humanity doesn’t build ‘cookie-cutter’ style homes. They wait until they have a partner family so that the family’s needs can then be assed in order to build a home that best fits them personally.

Once a home is started, the typical time until occupancy is one year.

Habitat for Humanity is also looking to start a “Helping Hands” project. This type of project will help to rehab a home for its owner. This would give the homeowner the opportunity to repay over a period of time on those needed repairs.

Habitat for Humanity will be holding another informational meeting on July 17th for those interested in learning more about being a partner family or volunteering. The meeting is scheduled for 7pm at the United Way building, 500 High Ave West in Oskaloosa.

You can learn more about Mahaska County Habitat for Humanity on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/MahaskaCountyHabitatForHumanity or by emailing the Executive Director at director@mahaskahfh.org or calling 641.295.5805

Posted by on Jul 10 2013. Filed under Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Comments are closed

         

Search Archive

Search by Date
Search by Category
Search with Google
Log in | Copyright by Oskaloosa News