Thanks to a partnership with Deerfield, 8 single-level Aging in Place (AiP) townhomes specifically designed for low-income aging adults are being built in Asheville Habitat’s New Heights neighborhood– and the first two buyers recently moved in.
A donation to Asheville Habitat makes homeownership possible for all of our neighbors, helps provide a stable foundation so children can thrive, allows homeowners to age in their communities, helps break the cycle of poverty, and helps families build strength, stability and self-reliance.
While we wait for our shots, I’ve been reflecting on how this experience provides a new way to think about the goal of building a community where all of our neighbors have a healthy and stable home. At a 2019 fundraising event, I quoted Dr. Megan Sandal comparing housing to a vaccine.
For Tikisha and Terrell, their Habitat house has served as a foundation for a better future, a refuge in challenging times, and a place to always and forever call HOME.
As an organization that condemns structural racism in our housing system, Asheville Habitat will not transfer this deed to another owner with this abhorrent language. We took the time to learn from the Register of Deeds and work with Pisgah Legal Services to draft new deed language that nullifies the racist restrictions. This is a small step in the right direction and we hope it inspires other property owners to do the same.
Asheville Habitat works every day to close the racial homeownership gap and expand access to stable and healthy homes. For 37 years, Asheville Habitat has built dozens of thriving diverse neighborhoods defying the lies behind residential segregation. Successful Habitat mortgages disprove the myths that justify “redlining” and predatory lending. Most important, we have empowered families to build a shelter against other forms of disparity.
For low-income families, stay at home orders exacerbate existing struggles such as exposure to toxins like mold and mildew, overcrowded conditions, and unsafe neighborhoods. While this pandemic affects everyone, the effects on our low-income neighbors is most acute.
Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity is recognizing milestones and thanking volunteers during Volunteer Appreciation Week (April 20-25). Though this year amidst Covid-19, it means ZOOM coffee breaks, mailed rather than hand-delivered cards, and gifts presented at a later date.
Like everyone, we are navigating unchartered territory. And like so many non-profits, our families’ needs can’t wait and in most cases are exacerbated by Covid-19. We’re an organization that unites people every day, side by side. In our ReStores, on our jobsites, with celebratory events, and in our community conference room. So, how we engage with you is going to look different for awhile, but we can still be united in spirit and in individual action that has collective impact.
Please read below for ways you can support us and the community during this unprecedented time. Thank you and be well.
DONATE
Affordable housing can’t wait. We are facing a significant loss of income that compromises our ability to build and repair affordable homes. Our ReStores are shuttered, all events are cancelled, and day-to-day fundraising is strained. If you have a safe, decent home, you are likely finding comfort and reassurance in it right now, but worried for those who don’t have a place to retreat. Please make a gift so we can ensure more of our neighbors have that same sense of stability and comfort.
ADVOCATE
With 1 in 6 households paying more than half their paycheck on rent, families already have to make sacrifices- health care, education, transportation, etc. Now with COVID-19 bringing many facets of everyone’s lives to a grinding halt, low-income families are the hardest hit. In the days, weeks and months ahead, our collective advocacy will play an important role in ensuring necessary support for our homeowners and community residents financially impacted by the pandemic and Habitat’s work. It is critical that Congress hear from Habitat and our communities about the importance of housing stability during this health crisis. Please take action now by clicking the link below. Thank you!
VOLUNTEER
CLEAN NOW, DONATE LATER
Our normally bustling ReStores are shuttered. As you spring clean, please remember the ReStore. Box up your items now for donation drop-off or pick-up later. We hope our next challenge will be more donations of gently used items than we could ever anticipate! Thank you in advance.
STAY IN TOUCH
You can continue to see photos, watch videos, read blog posts and connect with us on social media, read e-newsletters and Advocacy alerts, and visit our website and blog. We look forward to the day that we can all come together in community in person. Until then, stay connected with us virtually and be well.
And it goes without saying, take care of yourself, your family, your neighbors and your friends. We’re all in this together!
A reflection by Chris Nolan, an AmeriCorps member who works on the Home Repair team.
“Here at Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity, the first half of my year of service has felt like coming home to a place I’ve never been. In my first job out of college, I worked on a farm whose customer base was primarily people of considerable privilege, I loved the work I was doing and the people I worked with, but felt that overall what I was doing was lacking in impact and mission. Since leaving my home state I have been looking for that community and satisfaction from a hard day’s work that I felt on the farm, and after a few years of searching ended up where I am now.
Here on the Home Repair team, the work we do every day has a visible, tangible, and sometimes emotional impact on some of the most underserved and unseen members of our community. In this role I have begun to learn exactly the sort of skills I need, from framing to finishing and everything along the way. I am starting to see a house as not just a big box but a structure with layers, shedding water, bearing weight. And I have gotten to hear stories and perspectives from homeowners whose existence I would otherwise be entirely ignorant of.
In Home Repair our experiences with homeowners can range wildly. Take for instance: after completing one project, I learned that one of the home residents had died the following weekend. At another project, the conditions in which the homeowner was living before our repair had me saddened and upset through dinnertime. At another, the homeowner baked us fresh cookies, played Vivaldi while we worked, and every day offered us oranges, local apples, or baked sweet potato wedges while telling us stories from her life which spanned from coast to coast, with multiple careers and degrees along the way; at yet another, the elderly homeowner was more than eager to pick up a shovel and help us move hundreds of pounds of gravel. What we see here is real, what we learn is real, and what we do is real. And it is exactly where I want to be and what I want to be doing. So to Habitat and AmeriCorps, I say thank you for the chance to be right here.”
Want to hear from other AmeriCorps members who have worked with us in the past? Watch this video.
61 Weaver Blvd. Weaverville, NC 28787
828-484-9432
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Tuesday - Saturday
10am-6pm
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