Mother’s dream comes true thanks to Habitat for Humanity

Telegraph Journal, Nov. 27, 2001

Cheryl Green with her two daughters Keesha, left, and Tiffany, hopes to be in her new home in time to decorate it for Christmas.Photo by Cindy Wilson, Saint John Telegraph-Journal.

When Cheryl Green looks at the sheet rock walls daubed with crack-filling compound and the rough sub-floor of her almost completed home, she can imagine it decorated for Christmas.

But she still hadn’t decided whether to put the tree in the corner of her living room or in front of the window.

If all goes well, she and her two daughters, Keesha, 13, and Tiffany, 11, will move into the three-bedroom bungalow by the middle of December.

“It’s been a dream since I was very young,” she said.

Ms.Green, a lab technician at the Saint John Regional Hospital, has become a homeowner thanks to the help of Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit Christian housing group that provides low-cost financing to hard working, low income applicants. She is the fourth person in Saint John to get a home from the local chapter of the International organization, and the many volunteers who have donated their labour.

She agreed to put at least 500 hours of her own labour into the home, and figures she is pretty close. Ms. Green has pounded together two-by-fours to frame up walls in the basement and pushed countless wheelbarrow loads of earth around the yard.

Debbie Rice, president of Habitat for Humanity, Saint John Region Inc., is now looking for a family to help next year.

Anyone who needs adequate shelter, is willing to put some sweat equity into the project, and who can repay a long-term, no-interest mortgage should fill out an application, she said.

The papers can be picked up at the reception desk of The Investors Group at the Mercantile Centre on Union Street or at Holly’s Pizza Hut on Rothesay Avenue and have to be completed by January 15,2002.

Ms green said she filled out the forms last year because she figured she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. She was right.

Not only has she acquired a new home, she has met a lot of nice people from among the volunteers whose work has moved the project along since the foundation was poured in July.

There was the carpenter who oversaw the framing of the house, the eight fire fighters who put in all the windows on their days off, as well as the electricians and plumbers who donated their time.

Her brothers and some of their friends shingled the roof and volunteers from Investors Group built a cover for the outside entrance to the basement.

She chose a floor plan with living room, dining room and kitchen opening into each other down one side of the house. The other side has three bedrooms and bathroom.

As an apartment dweller, Ms. Green found it difficult tom indulge her love of gardening. Her new lot on Coster Street in West Saint John is small, and winter is almost here, but she still hopes to plant a few things.

“I have some bulbs and seeds in the trunk of my car”, she said. “I hope I can get them into the ground before it freezes.”

Ms. Green looked at an apartment on Coster Street a few years ago, liked the ne4ighbourhood, but ended up living somewhere else. Now she finds it hard to believe fate has found her a home on the quite street she admired back then.