Archive for category: News

The Habitat family was sad to see the Bailey’s move out of the area to be closer to health care for their son.  We were however able to purchase their Hot Sulphur Springs home that Habitat built five year prior. We add a bedroom for a larger family and welcomed the Dickerson Family home in 2016!

With children in the local schools and both parents busy working and contributing to the community, this family with thrive in a safe home while managing their homeownership responsibilities.

Blessings to our new family!

Great news!  Habitat has received a donation of a property in Granby.

Prior to his death in 2013, Dawn Cone expressed his wish to donate his Granby property to Habitat. Respecting Dawn’s wishes, his heirs, Blaine Cone and Lona Merrill, signed over the house to Habitat at the end of 2013.  Thank you so much Blaine and Lona for your great generosity to Habitat.

The property has a prime location, across from the Granby elementary school.  The existing structure is 60+ year old log house.  While we had hoped to rehab the house and expand it to meet the needs of our 2014 family, that has proven to be cost prohibitive.  Instead, we will remove the existing structure and build an Energy Star compliant home that also meets existing county zoning requirements.  This means that for our 11^th Habitat house we will be back in Granby where we built our first three Habitat houses.

Do you have some mountain property and would be interested in moving the existing structure to your property?  If yes, please contact the Habitat office (970-887-9138 or info@habitatgrandcounty.org).  The house might make a great little cabin for your mountain get-a-way.

In the next month Habitat will meet with Jim Pool of James K. Pool Architects, AIA, and Dave Clingman of Imagin3 Energy Solutions to draw up plans for the house.  As soon as weather permits, we will begin actual work and will be looking for construction volunteers.  We hope to see you in spring at the construction site!

Habitat for Humanity of Grand County is accepting applications for our next Habitat house – our 11th Habitat home in Grand County.

How Do You Qualify for a Habitat House?

To qualify for a Habitat house you must:

• Be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident;

• Have sufficient income to be able to pay a monthly mortgage payment – generally in the range of 30 – 60% of Grand County’s median income (approximately $1,873 – $3,510 before taxes per month for a family of four);

• Live in housing conditions that are not adequate for your family’s needs;

• Have lived in Grand County for at least a year; and

• Commit to contribute “sweat equity” toward the construction of the house – 200 hours from each adult in your family.

“Sweat equity” means you contribute your time and efforts to help Habitat volunteers build the house and agree to help with various Habitat projects such as fundraising events and mailings. Each family member over age 18 must contribute a minimum of 200 hours of sweat equity.

How Do You Apply?

To apply for a Habitat house you must:

• Complete the Home Buyer Screening Form;  mail it to Habitat at P.O. Box 969, Granby, CO  80446.

• Sign the release form to authorize Habitat to perform an in-depth study of your financial situation, including employment and credit verifications; and a background check;

• If approved, complete the full application for Habitat housing form;

• Schedule a home visit by our Family Selection team;

• Submit all required forms and financial documents requested in a timely fashion; and

• Complete and return the Meeting Your Sweat Equity Requirement form.

What if You Don’t Qualify Right Now?

If you qualify financially but are not selected this year because another family’s need is greater, we invite you to reapply for next year’s house. Since we build only one house per year, we can select only one family per year.

If you don’t qualify right now due to bad credit, excessive debt load or insufficient income, we invite you to attend our financial management course. This course will help you learn how to manage your money better, create a plan to pay off your debts and improve your credit score, and move toward the point where you can qualify.

If your income is too high, we suggest you attend one of the First Time Homebuyer seminars offered monthly by the Grand County Housing Authority and investigate your options for a commercial mortgage loan.

Another dream comes true…

Thanks to your support, a terrific young family in Grand County now has a home of their own and a healthy, stable environment for their sons.  Click here to see a slide show of building the house. Please be patient with the download.  Depending on your connection speed, it may take a while for the slide show to load.

The Bailey house is completed and Shane and Raina Bailey and their sons, seven-year old Sam and five-year old Ben, moved into their Habitat house in time to celebrate Thanksgiving.  The move is also just in time to provide seven-year old Sam the healthiest winter of his life.

Sam is their miracle baby.  He was born several weeks premature and with major medical problems, some of which persist to this day.  Sam spent the first 10 months of his life in a Denver hospital.  When he finally came home, he was still a very sick little baby.  He needed 24 hour a day care which Raina and Shane had been trained to provide.

Sam was hooked to a ventilator around the clock for his first two years; his movement was restricted by the tubes and oxygen monitoring wires to a radius of only four feet.

Many emergency trips to Denver and many surgeries later, Sam continues to have persistent pulmonary problems.  He still has a tracheal tube and is very susceptible to severe colds, especially in the winter when the forced air heating system runs.

That particular problem is behind Sam in his new Habitat house which we equipped with a hot water heating system.  For the first winter of his life, Sam will be able to avoid the illnesses brought on by the impurities of a forced air heating system.

Thanks to your support, we were able to provide this heating system and much, much more to make  a warm, healthy, affordable home for Sam and his family.

Shane and Raina are very excited about their new Habitat home. In Raina’s own words…

Since Sam was born, keeping up with his needs has meant some hard adjustments, large financial burdens and dreams put on hold.  Shane and I decided to find a way to make our dream of a home for our family a reality some how.  We started paying off debts and living well within our means.  Yet it still was not enough to afford a home in Grand County.  We are blessed to be given the opportunity to work with a wonderful organization like Habitat for Humanity, all of the wonderful people and volunteers, and the chance to build a home for our family, our children!

Sam and Ben are now buzzing about their bedroom.  They are excited to make it their own with a place for their books, puzzles, games and toys.  Our Habitat house is a dream come true and one we feel is a true blessing to treasure all our lives!

We are beyond words and gratitude for the opportunity to have a safe, healthy, stable home!

Shane, Raina, Sam and Ben Bailey

Your support has made Shane and Raina’s dreams come true.

Our goal is to continue to build simple, affordable, energy efficient homes for low income families in Grand County each and every year. We are most pleased to announce that the Bailey house achieved Energy Star rating and will be snug, warm and low-cost no matter how harsh the Grand County winter.

But the hard reality is that the cost to buy land and build even a simple Habitat house in Grand County is now well over $100 a square foot.  This does not include the value of donated materials, services and volunteer labor.  Without these donations our cost would be far higher.

Please click the Donate! tab on the menu bar and consider a very generous gift of $150, $200, $300 or more so we can continue to make dreams come true in 2011 and build our 10^th house in Grand County.

Thank you so much for your continued support!

Joan Boyle

Executive Director

P.S.  Your gift buys so much more than lumber and nails – it buys hope for a family.  Just think what it means to a child to have a safe, healthy, stable home in which to live and grow.