From large big box home improvement stores to small mom and pop companies, a Fox Valley Habitat for Humanity house under construction on Spruce Street in Aurora is being built primarily from in-kind donations.
This house will be the 56th house built by Fox Valley Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit that has been building houses in southern Kane County since the early 1990s.
Families who qualify for a Habitat for Humanity home are working families that do not have the income level or savings for a down payment to purchase a home on their own, Jeffrey J. Barrett, executive director of Fox Valley Habitat for Humanity, said.
With a mission to provide affordable housing for people in need by being a hand up and not a hand out, he added, “Our homeowners do have a mortgage.”
However, Fox Valley Habitat for Humanity acts as the mortgage company and doesn’t charge any interest to the homeowner.
“When homeowners make a payment every dollar is taken off the principal,” Barrett added.
The Spruce Street home is being built on a piece of property that Habitat for Humanity received through a City of Aurora/HUD neighborhood rehabilitation program, he added.
Initially, the plan was to rehab the home.
Typically, Barrett said, “We will rehab almost anything, but this one was beyond hope.”
Once the home was torn down, Naperville-based Torch Architecture developed plans for a one-and-a-half story, three-bedroom, two-bathroom home for Juan and Maria Martinez and their four daughters who have been living in a two-bedroom apartment for the last 10 years.
Both Juan and Maria were born and raised in Mexico. The two met in 2003 when they were both selling Amway products. At the time, Maria was a single mom to two children.
Juan came to the United States in 1992 with his family and worked for 16 years as a machine operator for a company before it went out of business.
He then went to work for another company which also went out of business. For the last three years, he has worked at an electronics company.
Maria, who began picking strawberries in Mexico when she was 12 years old, came to the United States when she was 17 and began working in a factory.
The Martinez family, like all of Habitat for Humanity families, have committed to providing “sweat equity” hours by working on the house. Depending on the size of the family, Barrett said families are required to contribute 350 to 500 hours in sweat equity helping to build Habitat for Humanity homes, including their own.
Fox Valley Habitat for Humanity typically builds about one or two houses per year; however, in the last several years, it has begun to build more houses each year and is utilizing different methods to fund the building of the homes.
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Even with the large amount of in-kind donations for the house on Spruce Street, Habitat for Humanity still had to fundraise for about 20 percent of the cost of the home.
Another home is being built through a Faith Build Project which brings together 32 churches to raise funds, provide material and labor to build the home, Barrett said.
There is a great need for affordable housing in the area, Barrett said.
“From the retail shops in Naperville to the factories in Batavia and the industrial parks in Geneva, the workers are living here in Aurora,” he said.
Apartment rents in the area have gone up so there is even a greater need, he added.
“If we can provide someone with equity in a house as opposed to paying rent,” Barrett said, “these homeowners will end up paying less in their mortgage payments than they would in rent.”
In addition, he said, when Habitat for Humanity goes into a neighborhood to rehab a home, the neighborhood begins to change.
“Other homeowners begin to do improvements to their own houses,” Barrett added.
Cathy Janek is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
Fox Valley Habitat for Humanity Fundraiser
What: Pancake breakfast
When: 8 to 11 a.m. Feb. 25.
Where: Advent Christian Church, 905 N. Edgelawn Drive, Aurora
Suggested donation: $7 per meal. Children under 10 years old eat for free.