Linda Mitchell England is months away from a goal she’s been working on for 19 years - paying off her home.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” the Blessing Health Information Management coder exclaimed.
Quincy Area Habitat for Humanity helped Linda launch her home-owning journey. In 2001, when Linda learned of Habitat, she was the single mother of three children living in an apartment in Mendon.
“After looking at the money I was pouring into rent, I thought it would be nice to able to say something was mine,” she said.
Over the past 20 years, Linda’s family has grown to six children, and they have added three bedrooms and a bathroom to their Habitat home.
Qualifying Habitat homeowners pay a no-interest mortgage to the organization, with payments based on their income. Mortgage payments go back into the program to help other qualified applicants.
“My payments went up only $100 a month from renting to buying,” said Nancy Weber of Blessing’s Food & Nutrition Department. She and her three grandsons moved from an apartment with serious structural problems and noisy neighbors to their Habitat home with a big basement and backyard in March 2021.
“I’m 60 years old. I did not plan on buying a house this late in life,” she said. “I really did surprise myself. The boys and I love it.”
In addition to mortgage payments, Habitat homeowners invest in their homes through “sweat equity”, working up to 225 hours, side-by-side with community volunteers, to build or renovate what will become their new home.
Stacy Williams of Blessing’s Food & Nutrition department is helping work on her Habitat house now and expects to be calling it home in spring of 2022.
Stacy put a lot of work into her dream before anyone picked up a hammer, screwdriver or saw. Her first attempts at home ownership were rejected by a traditional mortgage lender and by Habitat because of her personal debt burden. Instead of letting the rejections crush her dreams Stacy was motivated to change her family’s life. She took what she learned with the help of the Quincy YWCA and paid off her debt over two years. When Habitat learned Stacy had addressed her debt challenge, her application was approved.
“I was ecstatic,” Stacy said. “Isn’t that everybody’s dream, to own their own home?”
Habitat for Humanity helps people realize other dreams, too. Statistics show that two-thirds of children who lived in Quincy Area Habitat for Humanity homes have attended post-secondary education or career training, or joined the military.
“This is an unusually high percentage for children of poverty-level families,” said Ruth Hultz, Family Selection committee, Quincy Area Habitat for Humanity.
Linda believes her Habitat home contributed to one of her children currently being a master’s degree student, with another child to soon be enrolled in a master’s program.
“If I was still renting, I don’t know if they would be where they are today,” she said. “Quincy Area Habitat for Humanity gave our family a sense of stability we did not have before. That allowed me to concentrate on being a mother and to teach my children to be strong and independent.”
“Habitat builds strength, stability, and self-reliance through shelter,” said Lee Lindsay, president, Quincy Area Habitat for Humanity. “We believe affordable housing plays a critical role in strong and stable communities.”
For more information on Quincy Area Habitat for Humanity, click here.