Arizona REALTORS® Build Home For Hurricane Victim

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Arizona REALTORS® Build Home For Hurricane Victim

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uploaded by nreagan

Three local
Bullhead City Real Estate Agents traveled to Mobile, Alabama recently
to lend a hand in building a home for Habitat For Humanity's
hurricane-response program, Operation Home Delivery, which was
implemented to help low-income hurricane affected families in
Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama. The program began
immediately after Hurricane Katrina and expanded after Hurricane Rita.  

Habitat
for Humanity is a nonprofit Christian housing ministry that provides
affordable housing for "people of all backgrounds, races and
religions."  Through donations of labor, money and materials, they are
able to "partner" with families to build simple, decent homes, which
are sold at no profit and financed with affordable loans. 

A prospective
Habitat homeowner doesn't just receive a home.  They must provide a
down payment and monthly mortgage payments in addition to investing
hundreds of hours of their own labor, called Sweat Equity, into
building their home, and the homes of others.

Janice McGraw,
Jeanne Reimer, and Nancy Ryan were part of a Global Village Team
sponsored by the Arizona Association of REALTORS®.  The crew consisted
of 16 Arizona REALTORS®, 11 Americorp volunteers, ages 18-24, three
volunteers from New Jersey, two volunteers from Iowa and a supervisor.

The crew
started with a blank slab and by the end of day three had the house
framed, hurricane strapped and bolted down with tar paper on the roof. 
Roof shingles would take another day, and they would also be putting
windows in and installing vinyl siding.

The home
itself is slated for a widow with 11 children, five of which are still
at home. She is required to invest 300 Sweat Equity hours on any
Habitat home, but up to 150 hours can be donated by other workers, in
this case, the Arizona
team.  She will receive her home interest free, however if she sells
her home within 9 years, she will have to pay the 9 years of waived
interest. 

More than
50,000 volunteers have worked through Habitat to carry out recovery
efforts, with over 57 Habitat Homes beginning construction every month
since Hurricane Katrina. If you would like more information on Habitat
for Humanity, or information on becoming a volunteer, please see their
website at http://www.habitat.org/ or call Global Village at (800) 422-4828.

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Picture Caption:
The group photo is the Global  VillageTeam sponsored by the Arizona
Association of REALTORS.   Bullhead team members are left to right 1st
row 2nd person Janice McGraw (American Eagle Real Estate), 9th Nancy
Ryan (US Southwest), 10th Jeanne Reimer (Jeanne Reimer & Associates)