All Smiles at Oxford Habitat Home Transfer
The Town of Oxford (finally) has its third Habitat House, and a family to live in it.
Emma and Chris Brown, and their three children, received the keys to their new home on Little River Road at a special ceremony yesterday morning.
In 2016, Habitat for Humanity Nova Scotia poured two basements — for their second and third builds in the Town of Oxford — but for seven years, one basement seemed all but abandoned, as the organization that helps put people into houses went through the pandemic, an internal restructuring and financial challenges, and most recently facing the difficulty of finding tradespeople to do the job.
With family friends, community supporters, and the Habitat-NS team on hand, the Brown family — Emma and Chris, with children Isaac, Sarah and Max – were welcomed to their new home.
Emma Brown addressed the crowd saying she didn’t “know how to express the gratitude that our family has… It’s been a long journey for us. We have lived precariously for the last two years with my mother-in-law… If it weren’t for her, we would have been homeless for the last two years. We were in a position where our rental home got sold as so many did and there was just nowhere to go.”
The Brown family spent the past two years sharing a two-bedroom mini-home: six people plus an assortment of pets.
Brown said, “When we talk about the difference that Habitat makes in people’s lives, this is the difference it makes. This is the difference of a family literally not knowing where they’re going to live tomorrow. Once this U-Haul pulls in here this week and rolls out again, it’s never coming back. We have a home! We have a safe space to stay for our kids to be raised and we are just forever grateful.”
Habitat-NS CEO Donna Williamson hosted the event, joined by Oxford Mayor Greg Henley and Habitat-NS Board Member Angela Simmonds. Also present at the Tuesday key ceremony were local Habitat-NS committee members Jordan Burkhardt and Ron Wilson.
Addressing the crowd, Williamson said, “Habitat believes that everyone deserves a safe and decent place to call home. Better, affordable living conditions lead to improved health, stronger childhood development, financial flexibility, freedom to make forward-looking choices. Our programs help Habitat partner families help themselves.”
Williamson added, “Every day we build a relationship, recruit a volunteer, sell goods at our ReStore, partner with a company, or receive a donation. It is all focused on helping more Nova Scotians achieve homeownership.”
Mayor Henley welcomed the family, saying, “It’s great to see another family move into Oxford. One of the life-bloods of small communities is new people moving in, and the town is very excited that we could participate in this project and give you people a home.”
Habitat for Humanity partners with businesses and organizations who provide volunteer labour and donated materials for the house builds. One of those organizations was the Nova Scotia Association of Realtors (NSAR). That organization’s Paige Hoveling was on hand to talk about that group’s involvement in the Habitat build week.
Hoveling spoke about learning new drywalling skills that could be put to use in their own home and said the NSAR is committed to working with Habitat for the next two years. Hoveling said, “We truly feel so privileged to have been a part of this and I just want to say from NSAR and from realtors across the province, welcome home!”
A challenge for the Habitat for Humanity model is that many think it’s geared toward the low-income strata of the population.
Emma Brown says in going through the application process for this home, she learned that’s not the case, “I had this misconception that it was a low-income, low-rental housing and so when I looked at the criteria to apply, I was like, you have to be gainfully employed, you have to be able to support a mortgage payment, and as we looked at the criteria and realized that we qualified. We put forth our expression of interest and it kind of went from there. We learned so much in this process. So much in terms of even just conversations on budgeting, to how to put up drywall, how to build a deck. There's not a lot of repairs I think I wouldn't feel comfortable trying in the future just after helping to build our home. So yeah, it's been a wealth of knowledge.”
Brown hopes other families will consider supporting the Habitat initiatives and take this path to home ownership. She said the Habitat model is what made it all possible.
Brown added, “The fact that our down payment came in the form of sweat equity so that was the hours we put in to helping build this home that counts as our down payment, so we didn't have to worry about that stress of saving 10%, 15% towards a down payment. The fact that our mortgage will never be more than 30% of our income so it will remain affordable for us allowing us to live not just scrape by every month so that's really wonderful.”
Brown says, “I think the model is amazing and I would love to see it just you know grow and get bigger because the opportunity it's giving us, I can't even describe. And I want to see that for other families.”
The photo attached shows the Brown family at their new home. The photos below show the house and speakers Donna Williamson, Paige Hoveling, and Mayor Greg Henley.
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