06 Aug 2020
August 6, 2020

How Your Donation Makes a Difference

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People trying to make the journey from poverty to middle class are often working two or more part-time, low wage jobs. After Social Security and Medicare taxes, a minimum wage worker with a 40-hour work week job will receive $13,926.38 per year, or just over $1,150 per month. In Muncie the average rent cost of a home is $898/month. This means that at the end of the month, a single working mother could only have $252 to spend on food, utilities, and basic necessities for her family.

Homeownership with Habitat for Humanity can take away some of this stress for families. By donating to Habitat for Humanity, donors are helping to provide the opportunity for families to access affordable, safe housing through our homeownership, and home repair programs! Habitat’s model of ‘a hand up and not a hand out’ provides a family with an opportunity to acquire “soft skills” – meeting new people, teambuilding, enjoying success, and goal setting – as well as “hard skills” such as learning to create and manage a budget, home maintenance and repairs, and construction. Families who partner with Habitat for homeownership invest heavily of their time and effort, working on their home and the homes of other families. And this model makes a real difference.

Because families purchase a home from Habitat with NO INTEREST they are building equity at a greater rate, and saving money monthly. Enabling them to comfortably pay their monthly bills and begin to dream about their future.

Currently we have five families in the homeownership program, working on their sweat equity hours and waiting their home completion. Families are continually being selected!

Each Habitat Home costs approximately $100,000 to build, including skilled labor and materials. These new construction and rehabilitated homes are often appraised between $50-60,000. Which means that your investment as a donor matters deeply—helping families to be first-time homebuyers and making the big jump from living paycheck to paycheck to a more sustainable life in a home that is healthy, safe, and durable for many years to come.