More info about MCHFH

For round 5 Oak 3 went to the largest county east of the Mississippi with 60,000 people living within its borders, Marquette, Michigan. Serving for two weeks with Habitat For Humanity (HFH) proved to be an enlightening project for the team.

Upon arrival the administrative director for HFH, Renee, greeted the team and gave a tour of the housing. Our first day of work started with an online safety course and quiz to ensure the team was aware of proper safety procedures and techniques. The course included ladder safety, tool recognition, proper PPE, and other safety concerns that are present on a construction worksite. A brief history of this affiliate was presented to the team by the director, Mike. He went over the operations of HFH for Marquette and discussed what we should expect for the duration of the project.

Marquette HFH is known as a self help housing operation. Self help housing is a title available to organizations that work within a rural area and have the ability to build at least 4 houses in a year. Those who participate in this housing program must also contribute what is called “sweat equity.” Sweat equity is a requirement for all HFH housing that says anyone receiving a house must put hours into building their own house. However, in Marquette the self help housing program makes it so that everyone works on everyone else’s house. For example, if five families are getting homes, all five families must work on all five homes and nobody moves into their home until the last house is done being constructed. This means that the same effort should go into all houses being built because it doesn’t matter whose house is done first, it’s more about the group as a whole opposed to an individual family.

Some other criteria used to select participants includes: housing must be not safe, too small, or too expensive, ability to pay for housing which depends on your income, and your monthly bills are not too high to afford a mortgage payment. Also a $500 down payment is needed to begin building. Families must also be willing to promote Habitat in their local community and attend workshops to learn about owning and caring for a home.

Marquette HFH has built around 90 homes since 1992 and by August 2014 hopes to have 94 built, that’s why AmeriCorps NCCC is here. All of the families receiving homes in Marquette must have an income so their volunteer hours aren’t always consistent so with the help of NCCC the homes go up faster for those in need.

Since homeowners must pay their 15 hours per week “sweat equity” the team got to work with volunteers on the regular basis. Oak 3 had plenty of time between framing walls and installing other aspects of the home to discuss the local area with the volunteers. The team got plenty of great ideas for site seeing trips such as Sugar Loaf Mountain and the Iron Ore Museum. The closed air force base was also a popular topic since it has caused a lot of issues. The city used to have a lot more jobs within the air force and when it shut down many places went out of business. This was evident when the team took a trip around to see the deserted areas where it was obvious business once thrived. Adding onto the strain of many jobs being shut down, there are a lot of new faces in town. These faces came from New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. The government searched for affordable housing for displaced families and found that within Marquette. Seeing abandoned homes are frequent around Marquette. Marquette is a beautiful community and a beautiful location that is on the up rise trying to recover from a hard setback; they’re true “yoopers” and embrace everyone that’s thrown at them. Their dedication to their land and community truly inspired Oak 3.