Meet Our Homeowners

Habiat is an equal opportunity housing lender. Since 1986, Habitat Orlando has helped over 160 families become homeowers.

We accept applicants based on three main criteria: housing need, willingness to partner and ability to pay a mortgage. Habitat homowners come from all walks of life and chances are you probably know or have met a homeowner and may not have known it. Future homeowner Yolanda Smith wanted to share her Habitat experience with our volunteers and donors and wrote this peom seen below.

   My Habitat Situation

   By: Yolanda Smith

   (Future Habitat Homeowner)

It all began with a thought that I deserved better.
First step, a higher education.
I started college and steadily held down two jobs for two years.
I will be finished with college in October.
Goal one, check; on to goal number two.

Wanting to improve my family’s living conditions;
Between the roaches, termites, bugs, and lizards coming under the door
I felt like we were living in a pet store rather than an apartment.
I heard about Habitat, and needed to know more about the program.
This began my Habitat situation.

Classes on homeownership, paperwork, and other qualifications;
One qualification was fixing my credit report which thankfully, I fixed in a very short time.
Being a single parent of three teenagers, this was a hard thing to do; but I did it.
This put me a step further into my Habitat situation.

Three hundred hours of volunteer sweat is another qualification.
When Habitat says “sweat equity hours”, they mean sweat, literally.
The group begins each day with a prayer to ask God for a safe and productive day.
We hung drywall, painted, cut grass, cleaned;
This was all a very big challenge.
Everyone I knew worked and Jeromey, my son, was job hunting.
So my mom, 64 years old, was delegated for one hundred sweat equity hours.
Things are looking good in my Habitat situation.

We decided to do the hours at the construction site.
It became too much for mom after thirty-three hours
Habitat allowed Jeromey to replace her and I was so very grateful to the.
I am surrounded by wonderful people in my Habitat situation.

The people at Habitat construction site, Mark and Joey, supervisors are great.
Patiently explaining and working with many volunteers.
Joey gave my son a job recommendation; this helping Jeromey get a job.
He told them that Jeromey volunteered for Habitat and he was in.

Working at the construction site has blessed me in more than one way
You never know who you will meet at the work site, you could meet your next employer
This has been a life-changing experience
I am in a good position in my Habitat situation.

I close with this piece of advice:
If you are tired of your life situation, only you can change it.
With all the things going on in my life, I still made the time;
Working hard for something will make you appreciate it more;
Maybe you too can enter into a Habitat situation!

Alice Tolliver was accepted to the Habitat Orlando program in August 2009. She has already completed her 300 “sweat equity” hours and is attending the required homeowner classes. She will move into the 5th building in Stag Horn Villas. Construction on this building of 7 townhomes is scheduled to start in May 2010. Alice is not only a dedicated mother of three but she is also an accomplished writer. Click here to read a poem she wrote for Habitat Orlando to share with our volunteers and donors.

Whitney Poole and her two sons are anxiously waiting to move into their first home. Whitney is an employee at Hilton Orlando and attends Rollins College on scholarship. She is scheduled to move into the next building at Stag Horn Villas.

Representatives from Hannover Life Re America with Ludovic and Marie Maurissaint (holding up her key) at their home dedication ceremony in the Stag Horn Villas on August 18, 2009.

Angelo Suggs

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