GATHER Veterans Magazine January 2020

HABITAT HOMES – by Holly Monteith –

They say “home of the free because of the brave”, but what happens when the brave who’ve served so valiantly come back to find no home for their family or themselves? There are over 20 million Veterans in the United States, and among them, more than 40,000 are homeless.

For a time, my husband Kyle, and our family were a part of those statistics. Together, we’re the most recent Veteran Partner Family that Habitat of Humanity of Grand Traverse Region has blessed with the opportunity to build and buy an affordable home. Without the program, our family would currently be homeless.

A few years back, Kyle, who served nine years in the United States Navy as a Hospital Corpsman, was working full time. So was I. Together, we were providing the best life we could for our two beautiful boys. We were renting a home in Lake Ann, MI, when the owners decided to sell the house.

We tried several different times with different banks to qualify for a mortgage to purchase the home we’d been living in but to no avail. Low-income housing options didn’t pan out for us. Finally, my brother offered to let us move into the unfinished basement of the home he was renting. Grateful for the helping hand, Kyle used the time in our temporary dwelling to reach out to Habitat for Humanity. He wanted to see if they could point us in the right direction.

His email started our journey with Habitat for Humanity. The staff walked us through the steps of repairing our credit and cleaning up our debt, all while being reminded by the crew at HFH to remain hopeful. Our stay with my brother stretched into six months but on June 13th, 2018 we found out we were accepted to the Habitat homeowners program.

We were ecstatic for the opportunity to build our forever home. When Habitat for Humanity partners with a family, they don’t just hand all the goodies to you. We had to work for everything HFH was willing to give us. This included Kyle and I each completing 275 sweat equity hours on top of attending homeowner workshops and meetings for financial counseling.

We quickly started working down these sweat equity hours and on July 3rd, 2018, we were presented with Maple City as the location of our forever home. The next few months were spent toiling away at our sweat equity requirements and attending financial meetings. It seemed like we were digging ourselves out of this financial hole. Even when we had to make another move to our friend’s home before our new home became available.

Three months later, we had our groundbreaking ceremony in Maple City, who embraced us into their community without missing a beat. While we waited on permits, the local Lions Club graciously allowed us and Habitat to start fabricating the walls of our home in their parking lot. We worked on building our house all winter into spring, and slowly things began taking shape. We met many great people along the way. From the seasoned core crew that works with Habitat daily to those that volunteer as a home constructed. Everyone seemed genuinely excited to help.

By April of 2019, our house was near completion. Upon acceptance for an affordable mortgage through Habitat’s partnership with the USDA, we began applying for grants and down payment assistance through other government services.

With yet another move to temporary housing under our belts, we closed on our new home on July 12th of 2019. I still have moments where I can’t believe that this is all real. Kyle and I tend to wait for that proverbial shoe to drop, or for something else to happen. For now, we are learning to live independently again and how to be a family after being essentially homeless for two years.

I wouldn’t say our journey with Habitat was easy. All the high points we had experienced came with a lot of lows. We were stressed to the max, frustrated beyond belief, and doubtful that things would work out. Through it all, Habitat never left our side. They worked as hard behind the scenes as they worked helping us build our home, and made sure to communicate consistently along the way. They genuinely cared about us and our kids. It meant something to them that Kyle was a veteran. They cared he was reaching out for help, and they cared that our situation was not in any way ideal. We are so grateful that Habitat made it possible for us to “build” our future, not only for us but for our kids as well.

I want other veterans, and their families, to know there is help out there. My husband once said that he was perfectly fine with living in a tent. After all, he did this many times in his nine years of service. But he wasn’t satisfied with his family living in those circumstances. Improvise, adapt, and overcome was drilled into his head. When that failed, he wrote that email to Habitat. He figured it wouldn’t amount to anything. Yet, it was the answer our family needed. We never have to worry about where we’re going to go next or how long we’ll be welcome there. Habitat is working to make the affordable housing market a real thing, and they are trying to help as many veteran families as they can while doing it.

Let’s work together to make this the land of the free and home of the brave!

For More Information on the Habitat for Humanity's Veterans Build Program, visit habitatgtr.org.