Habitat Happenings

In honor of our 20 Year Anniversary we will be featuring a different Habitat Partner for each of the 20 Days of our blitz build.  We celebrated 20 Years of Habitat this morning and we kicked off the Building Blocks house.  Today Whirlpool had a crew of volunteers on site hammering away to get the walls up.  Our partner for the day today is the City of Cleveland and Bradley County.  We are fortunate to live in a community that realizes the need for simple, decent affordable housing.  We would like to say thanks to all of our elected officials in the city and the county that have been working to help eradicate substandard housing in our community.

Here is a video of our partners symbolically nailing the first nails into our Building Blocks home at our 20 Year Celebration this morning.

The First Nails from Habitat Cleveland on Vimeo.

Click here to see a few pictures from the celebration this morning. 

Below is a write up recognizing the extensive work that the City of Cleveland and Bradley County has done to help us work towards the goal of eliminating substandard housing.  

Thank you for supporting Habitat!  Together we can build a stronger community!

City of Cleveland and Bradley County Partner with Habitat

In recent years the City of Cleveland and Bradley County have taken a hard look at the issue of affordable housing in Cleveland.  After looking at the local need, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work finding collaborative partnerships to help those in need. 

One successful partnership is between the City of Cleveland and Habitat for Humanity of Cleveland through the Community Development Block Grant program. This partnership has allowed the city to donate lots for home construction, provide down-payment assistance and most recently, provide funds to help build the infrastructure in Phase I and Phase II of Century Village. In turn, Habitat of Cleveland is currently building a total of 40 homes in Century Village, allowing hard working families, who otherwise may not have the opportunity, a chance to own their own home.

Bradley County’s most recent partnership with Habitat for Humanity was through the Bradley County HCI grant funding process to help build offices to use for program services.  This funding, in partnership with many other donors from the community, has increased Habitat’s capacity to serve more families, partner with more community organizations, build more homes and offer a variety of training opportunities for clients in the program.

“These partnerships with the City of Cleveland and Bradley County have increased our capacity to build more homes in the local area,” commented Matt Carlson, executive director of the local affiliate.  “Both local governments have fortunately stepped forward to help in many ways, which in turn allows us to put 100% of local community donations into home construction, benefiting more families.”

“We’re deeply appreciative of what Habitat has been able to accomplish in Cleveland over the years and very proud of the community involvement in helping local families in need,“ commented Mayor Rowland.  “Working together we can make a bigger impact and this successful partnership proves that we are making a difference.”

“It’s easy to see the growth of Habitat locally and their ability to help more families each year.  Besides Century Village, another example of Habitat’s strong presence in the local area is the new Habitat ReStore,” continued Rowland.  “There are so many positives to this concept of recycling donations, good prices, keeping millions of pounds from the landfill, and much more.  Also, the increased visibility at the new location is another way to remind us all of the work that needs to be done in the local community and how we can all make a difference in someone else’s life.“ 

Matt Carlson, Teresa Torbitt, Verrill Norwood signing papers to receive funding for the infrastructure of Century Village Subdivision. {tag_unsubscribe}