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West Kelowna  

A home for those in need

Two families have brand new homes to call their own after the keys were handed over by Habitat for Humanity Saturday.

The Nixon and Evans families were joined by dozens of people outside the new homes on the chilly Saturday morning in Peachland.

Many of the volunteers who had helped build the houses, along with Dan Albas, member of Parliament for Central Okanagan-Similkameen-Nicola, and Cindy Fortin, mayor of Peachland, braved the cold weather to see the families move into their new homes.

“It may a chilly November day today, but there’s nothing that warms the heart better than seeing these two families take occupancy of their new homes,” Fortin said.

Jordan and Travis Nixon were overjoyed with the new place.

“This means a whole new start to life, we could have never saved up enough for a down payment,” said Jordan, as her two sons, Zion, three, and Salem, one, ran around her feet. “We currently live in a house with two rooms so the two boys are sharing their room, and because of their ages, they wake each other up.”

Melanie Evans, a single mother living with her two sons said their previous house was infested with ants.

“In the middle of the night one night … my son started screaming,” Evans said. “There were literally thousands coming out of the wall, like horror movie crawling up the walls.

“When you see your child horrified and having nightmares and you can’t get to sleep at night because you’re wondering are you going to wake up covered in ants, that was what drove me to the Habitat site.”

Habitat for Humanity has been operating in the Okanagan for 23 years, but these are the first homes they have built in Peachland.

Shovels first went into the ground on the project in May, and over 80 volunteers, along with multiple contractors and construction companies who offered their services at reduced costs, have worked tirelessly to get the homes built. The municipality of Peachland donated the land to the project.

“We had volunteers onsite, sometimes just one or two, but primarily it would be about five volunteers a day,” said Deborah Guthrie, executive director of Habitat for Humanity Kelowna. “Last Saturday we had twenty.”

The families who move into Habitat homes are required to put in 500 hours of work into their homes, or into another charitable cause in the community.

“I actually built my doorframe downstairs and I did a terrible job,” Jordan said.

Habitat for Humanity chooses who will live in the houses by a number of criteria, including need, having a regular income and having children.

The Nixon and Evans families don’t need to put a down payment on their houses, and they will pay off their mortgage on the homes monthly.

Guthrie says Habitat for Humanity ensures the families' mortgage will never be more than 30 per cent of their income.  

While the total cost of the build is still being tallied, Guthrie says it cost them about $180,000 to build.

Laurie the owner of one of the first Habitat for Humanity houses in the Okanagan, was on hand at the event. She got her house in 1996 and finished paying off the mortgage this past October.  



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