Posted June 2, 2023, at 5:53 p.m. By Associated Press
CLEVELAND, Tenn. (AP) — At first, Bernita Williams didn’t think it was real.
Her daughter, LaTrayier Williamson, had applied for a house through Habitat for Humanity in Cleveland, Tennessee, which builds homes and trains homeowners.
When the mother and daughter got the phone call saying they were approved, Williams said they entered “the excitement phase.”
“We jumped up and down, we screamed and hollered,” she said by phone. “Then it was like, oh man, what do we have to do?”
For the past two weeks, more than 160 female volunteers have been working on Williams and Williamson’s new home, which they expect to move into in the fall.
Sixteen teams of women participating in Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build helped raise walls, install windows, build a porch and apply siding to the house.
Professionals come in to complete plumbing, electrical work and roofing, but around 80% of work done on the organization’s homes is done by volunteers, Katherine Kimball, donor engagement coordinator for Habitat for Humanity of Cleveland, estimated.
Williams and Williamson have also been working on the home, applying siding, putting up walls and adding moulding to windows.
When finished, the three-bedroom home will complete a South Cleveland neighborhood of Habitat-built homes, Kimball said by phone.
Each team of women also raised $2,500 — about $250 per volunteer — to go toward construction.
At the beginning of the two-week build, the property only had a concrete slab. Now, it looks like a home.
“It has been beautiful watching the house be built by women,” Williamson said by phone. “Women are the ones hammering nails, using the nail guns, the saws.”
Volunteers even threw a birthday party, complete with balloons and cake, on the construction site for Williamson’s now-3-year-old son Ky’mier.
Many of the Women Build volunteers were mother-daughter duos, Kimball said. Homes constructed by Women Build volunteers typically go to households that are mostly women, she said. The female-led project has been active for about 10 years, Kimball said.
Before moving in, Williams and Williamson had to complete a 16-week course on homeownership, which included training on maintenance, budgeting and legal processes.
They also put in 400 hours of what the organization calls “sweat equity,” which includes hours working on the home as well as manning the Habitat for Humanity ReStore and helping with other homes, if needed.
“It’s a hand-up, not a handout,” Kimball said.
Williamson said that compared to the two-story townhouse where her family lives now, the new home will be safer and more stable for her mother and son.
“I won’t have to worry about my mom falling down stairs anymore, especially because she watches my child for me while I work,” she said.
Habitat offers mortgages at 0% interest to its homeowners, many of whom have struggled to qualify for traditional mortgages, Kimball said.
The need for affordable homes only went up during the pandemic, Kimball said, and as rent prices continue to rise in the Cleveland area.
“We won’t have to worry as far as the rent going up, up, up,” Williams said. “We will be paying for something that’ll be ours. We will be investing in ourselves.”
