The Spokane chapter of Habitat for Humanity is dedicating four new homes in Deer Park today [Tuesday]. They’re the newest additions to what will eventually be a 114-home development in the north Spokane suburb.
Of Habitat’s Hope Meadows' new homeowners, one is a couple with six children that migrated from Sudan. They’re part of a development that CEO Michelle Girardot says is about half finished.
The story of Habitat for Humanity is well known, with families required to put in hundreds of hours of labor into building homes, theirs and their neighbors’.
Girardot’s organization is one of many groups that are trying to fill Spokane’s growing demand for housing.
“We, ideally, are building all over Spokane County. In the last several years that has not been the case," she said. "But, just in the last year, we’ve launched the Derelict Housing Acquisition and Home Ownership Program, which is a really exciting opportunity for Habitat to acquire blighted units, foreclosed units, abandoned units in neighborhoods like West Central, northeast Spokane, that can then be revitalized.”
She says the biggest challenges to keeping Habitat viable here are the higher costs of obtaining land and building supplies. She says the organization has had to be creative in building partnerships to get the funding needed to keep mortgage prices low for its clients “so we can continue to provide down payment assistance to our families and really layer on the multiple levels of financing that need to happen so we saddle someone with a strong and successful mortgage plan and not just a 60 or 70-year mortgage term," Girardot said.
She says Habitat’s Hope Meadows development in Deer Park is about half finished.