Habitat for Humanity finishes home

By Lindsey Alpert

Daily Staff Reporter

Six hundred students, $50,000, seven months and 4,200 hours later, the University chapter of Habitat for Humanity will complete the building of the first-ever chapter-sponsored house this weekend.

Finishing touches will be made on the house tomorrow and a dedication ceremony will take place on Sunday.

"We've done the legwork from beginning to end," said LSA junior Ronny Luhur, vice president of the campus chapter.

The money, which took three years to raise, came from can drives, Residence Hall meal sacrifices and grants from the Michigan Student Assembly, Johnson and Johnson and Best Buy. "It takes a lot of effort to fundraise all that money," Luhur said.

The University chapter was founded in 1996 by Rackham students Michael Carr and Eric Allenspach and has grown to about 2,200 student members with a goal of "One Year, One House, One Family."

"We're hoping to build another house in the fall," Carr said. "We received a grant of $10,000 from the Social Workers (Investing in Neighborhood Growth), but we have a long way to go."

The chapter works with the Habitat for Humanity of Huron Valley, which has built 28 homes in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor since 1989. The organization centers around the philosophy that the house is "a hand up, not a hand out."

Recipients of the homes need to put in 400 hours of "sweat equity" and pay for the home with an interest-free loan set up for 30 years. The recipient of the home is chosen by need, willingness to participate in the program and ability to repay the loan.

"It's been really exciting building the house from ground up," said Diane Walker, who will live in the house with her three children and her mother. "I didn't think I could do it, but now I see that anything is possible."

The students and volunteers from Detroit built all of the house, except for digging the basement, electrical wiring, plumbing and leveling the backyard. House Leader Scot Norris would drive in from Grosse Pointe each workday to supervise the building.

"Scot would bring a crew every week from Detroit," Luhur said. "Those guys really helped us out coordinating the building and telling us how to do things."

Students have worked since October for about six hours on Saturdays starting at 7:15 a.m. "I've met a lot of students," said Construction Coordinator Katie Norris, an Engineering senior. "We got about 20 new people each week, and I don't think anyone has had a bad experience on the worksite with us."

The final building day will take place tomorrow, when the driveway and sidewalks will be poured, the kitchen countertops installed, the yard landscaped, carpeting installed and a shed built in the backyard.

"I can't move in yet, but I should be able to in about a month," Walker said. "We're definitely ready. The work wouldn't have gotten done without the University students and all the people that donated their time."