After a few years of planning, fundraising, and organizing volunteers, 106th Street will see some new residents.
Habitat for Humanity’s first North Battleford home was introduced to the public on Wednesday, June 26. City dignitaries, including Mayor Ryan Bater, were on hand, as were Habitat for Humanity organizers, volunteers, and the families moving in.
The organization built a duplex to accommodate Nicole Horse’s family, which includes her sons Zidane and Nicholai, and Kristen Scott’s family, which includes her sons Jacob and Keegan.
Horse said the new experience is “exciting,” yet she’s “relieved it’s come down to the last nitty gritty.”
Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit group that organizes building material and labour to build dwellings for families that apply. For individual projects, contractors are hired to complete certain tasks, while volunteers complete the rest of the work. Volunteering commitments vary, as does the experience level of volunteers. Habitat for Humanity encourages both experienced tradespeople and people who’ve never swung a hammer before to volunteer their time.
Selected residence dwellers must be working and must contribute 500 hours of labour, called “sweat equity,” toward their future homes.
Horse said she did a number of tasks, including installing drywall, mudding, sanding, and laying down gravel. She said she “enjoyed the fact that it was starting to come together” since she said that at the beginning of the process, it was “hard to envision how it was going to work.” Horse added she enjoyed sanding the least.
Living in a Habitat for Humanity building involves paying off a mortgage, meaning that families selected for Habitat for Humanity homes must be working. According to the Habitat for Humanity website, mortgages are no-interest and no down payment, with monthly payments set at 25 per cent of gross income. The mortgage payment goes toward a Revolving Fund for Humanity, which in turn is used to build more Habitat for Humanity dwellings.
North Battleford’s project began in 2012, as Battlefords-based My First Home Inc. partnered with Habitat Saskatoon. In June 2013, former North Battleford mayor Glenn Hornick and his wife Caren donated the land on which the duplex was built. Donations from SaskTel Pioneers, Home Hardware and the City of North Battleford followed, and in 2015, the two families were chosen, and construction site co-ordinator Ron Braun was hired. Other donations included $130,000 from the province through the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation, $20,000 from Battlefords Agency Tribal Chiefs, the Knights of Columbus, and a number of individual donations.
Former city councilor Cathy Richardson has been involved with the North Battleford Habitat for Humanity project since its early years. She said building the duplex took longer than the My First Home Inc. board anticipated.
“You watch too many reality TV shows and you think it goes up pretty fast, but all the pieces have to fall into place for it to happen,” Richardson said.
She said costs also ran higher than anticipated, meaning extra fundraising will be needed. Richardson said she “learned heaps,” along with things to do different next time.
John Odgers, who said he has lived for about 25 years in the house beside where the duplex has been built, sat in a chair on the sidewalk beside where the ceremony took place. He said the construction noise didn’t bother him, and said it was good that there were new neighbours.
“It’s good that they’re home now,” Odgers said.
The Horse family moved in a few weekends ago, and the Scott family is set to move in at the end of August. The Scott side of the duplex still needs some work, and Richardson urges volunteers to help finish a fence, landscaping, and hanging a few doors and closets. She said Scott has family to help in case volunteers can’t complete the work before the move-in date.
