Habitat offers range of programs to provide homes

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Habitat for Humanity Lake County is an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International.

Habitat has a number of programs for which people can volunteer to help. Those programs are Women Build, Building on Faith and Youth United.

• Women Build is a program in which women raise the money and build homes with and for women.”

The site of the 2008 Women Build House is 1637 11th Court in Carter Crossing.

• Youth United brings together people ages 5-25 to fund and build a home with a local family in need.

The children help raise money and awareness, while those ages 16 to 25 build the house.

Youth United is working on a house at 1631 11th Court in Carter Crossing.

It is expected to be done during the 2007-08 school year.

Jeff Smith, development director of Habitat for Humanity, said this program helps bring youths together from around the county.

“It’s really neat to see the kids interact,” he said.

• Building on Faith brings people of different faiths together to build houses as an expression of God’s love, according to the Web site.

“It’s an opportunity to bring folks who normally don’t have an opportunity to interact,” Smith said.

The groundbreaking ceremony of the 2008-09 Building on Faith project is expected to be Sept. 22 as part of Day of Prayer Weekend.

All of the programs at Habitat for Humanity allow for the families who will live in the homes to pay an interest-free mortgage to Habitat.

The families selected sign up with Habitat and must meet a list of requirements, including having an income of no more than $40,000 and not owing any back taxes.

A list of other criteria can be found at www.habitatlc.org.

Habitat also offers a chance for people to donate or buy new and used building materials at ReStore, a store at 3545 Grand Ave. in Gurnee.

Smith said the ReStore is something unique that Habitat for Humanity Lake County offers. The stores hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.

Because donations are important for Habitat, Smith explained where all the money goes.

On the Habitat Lake County Web site it says $100,000 is used to build each house in Lake County.

But Smith said $10,000 of that money actually goes to Habitat International, which is used to build two houses in the Philippines.

For information about Habitat for Humanity Lake County, call Smith at 847-623-1020 or e-mail at jeff@habitatlc.org.