Building Homes for the Holidays & Year-Round
Our support for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cincinnati helped give new meaning to the holidays for Tyleah Pleasant and her family.
Tyleah and her two daughters were able to enjoy their new Habitat-built home for Christmas and the arrival of the new year. They joined with volunteers to build the two-story house at 1731 Holloway Avenue in Cincinnati's Evanston neighborhood. The family moved into the house in November.
Becoming a first-time homeowner was a welcome opportunity to build a better future, Tyleah wrote in a thank-you note to Habitat's leadership:
"We're grateful to be the chosen ones for this home on Holloway. For me, home ownership means changing the narrative, breaking some chains, breaking the generational curse that's placed over our family. So I'm grateful to God for this opportunity, this vision, to change some things."
People wanting to become Habitat homeowners must apply for consideration and provide proof of income. Those selected are required to help build their homes along volunteers and then receive no-interest mortgage loans to buy the homes.
Church coalitions that work with Habitat helped construct Tyleah's house. They included volunteers from the Shalom, WestFed and Eastside coalitions. St. Barnabas is a member of Eastside, and supports Habitat with contributions of money and volunteer labor.
Tyleah said she would volunteer to work on another Habitat house, and hopes to get her church involved in a coalition that will work with Habitat. Habitat for Humanity, founded in 1976, is a nonprofit Christian organization dedicated to building affordable housing and helping families become homeowners, in all 50 states and foreign countries. Habitat's Cincinnati affiliate builds houses in southwest Ohio and nearby parts of Kentucky and Indiana.
Thank you for your continuing support of Habitat's homebuilding mission. For more information, please contact John Nolan at newserjohn@aol.com or (513) 263-0399.