RCAC Home Page >
News and Publications >
RCAC Self-Help Builder News Spring 2011 >
Color Country Community Housing Inc. Utah Open House
On March 9, Color Country Community Housing celebrated the completion of another successful self-help group with a ribbon cutting and open house at its Ivins I subdivision. The celebration was in honor of the six families (four very-low income, two low-income) that devoted 10 months of hard work to the construction of their homes. The group included head of household families and a retired mother and daughter team.
All families within the group shared successes and struggles from the time they submitted their loan applications to when they completed their homes. Some had substantial credit issues. One family in particular, a single parent with two children, shared a two-bedroom apartment. The mother shared the one bedroom with her daughter, allowing her son to have his own room. This single mother’s parents were never homeowners, however, she had a dream that she would be. She worked diligently to improve her credit and meet the eligibility requirements of the program.
When the homes were completed, the group members voted this single parent as the “volunteer queen.” She earned the title by soliciting volunteers at every opportunity. She even went as far as to buy a homeless gentleman a meal and a shower (on a few occasions) in exchange for his labor on the construction of her home and others’ in the group.
Dotti Higley, Color Country’s family coordinator, assisted the families throughout the 10 month process, encouraging and counseling from day one until the day of the ribbon cutting. Higley commented how the families worked together, changed their lives, and expressed gratitude for the opportunity for homeownership which would have been impossible without the Mutual Self-Help Housing program.
Back to Self-Help Builder News ...