Home Construction - Affordable Home Ownership
Habitat for Humanity has high expectations of their future homeowners:
- Families do not get a free house! Homebuyers sign a mortgage and installment note with Habitat for Humanity, and are required to make monthly payments.
- Homeowners spend at least 300 hours of “Sweat Equity” per adult building their home, or the home of another Habitat family. This develops pride in ownership.
- Habitat for Humanity homes are simple, decent, and affordable, and are built to green communities and energy star levels. This ensures durability, energy efficiency and affordability.
- Locally, 61 homes have been sold to low to moderate income families. Northwoods Habitat is the lender and loan servicer for our home buyers.
- Northwoods Habitat for Humanity does business with an average of 25 businesses every time we build a home.
- The cost of construction material is beyond the capacity of our home buyers due to COVID related shortages and skyrocketing increases. Now, more than ever, Habitat needs your support to help families purchase an affordable home that will allow them to build equity for their future, their children's future, and for generations! Please donate to our BUILDER'S CLUB to help build 2 homes in Summer 2025.
Scroll down to learn more about our other projects!
A Brush with Kindness, Northwoods Habitat's repair program, needs funding to complete projects!
Habitat for Humanity believes low income homeowners should be allowed to live in their homes in dignity. A hand-up is often all that is needed to make that happen. A Brush with Kindness...
- is a nation-wide effort to serve low-income homeowners who struggle to maintain the exterior of their homes.
- focuses on exterior home repair services such as decks and ramps, painting, minor exterior repairs, landscaping, and exterior clean-up. Groups of 10-20 volunteers work alongside the homeowner to revitalize a home’s exterior. Team leaders make the experience of helping others a positive one.
- is a partner to Habitat’s core building program. It allows us to serve a different population than we currently serve, yet follows the same basic tenets for eligibility (need, ability to pay, willingness to partner). It is a direct fit with Habitat's strategic plan to exponentially increase the number of families served.
- uses volunteers, donated materials and no interest loans or grants to makes repairs affordable, helping low-income homeowners continue to live independently and securely in their homes.
- needs approximately $20,000.00 annually to complete projects - please donate today!
Our tithe partner, Guatemala
Since 1990, Northwoods Habitat for Humanity has tithed $182,725 and impacted 51 families in Guatemala. Here's what Habitat Guatemala has to say about affordable home ownership...
- A good home is more than just a roof over someone’s head. It creates:
1. Stability for families and children.
2. A sense of pride and confidence.
3. Health, physical safety and security.
4. An increase of educational and job prospects.
- When building a new home with Habitat Guatemala, families receive a credit of US $5,200 to be used for construction.
- Repayment occurs over the course of 8 to 12 years with a low interest rate (to account for inflation).
- The houses are simple, three or four-room structures with an attached bathroom, and there are nine house designs to choose from and personalize.
- All new Habitat homes are made of steel-reinforced concrete block and cement, designed to be resistant to natural shocks and tremors.
- Corrugated metal sheet roofing keeps the family dry during Guatemala’s brutal rainy season; while houses built in Guatemala’s coldest regions all have wood paneling insulation in the bedrooms to keep the families warm.