“I finally said, ‘Go ahead and apply. All they can do is tell you no,’” she said.
Several weeks later, Weber was accepted.
After completing her 100 hours of sweat equity, and her family and friends completing the other 150 hours of required volunteer service, Weber, her boyfriend, and her three children are homeowners.
“A dream come true for the whole family,” Weber said Saturday after a dedication ceremony at 710 Carter Court.
She will close on the four-bedroom, two-bath home today and move in on Wednesday, she said. She will live there with her boyfriend, Devon Brown, and children: Dylan, 16, Denise, 15, and Damien, 14.
The Weber home became the sixth Habitat for Humanity property on Carter Court and the 20th in the subdivision, said Ed Lee, president/CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cincinnati. He said the project is a partnerships between the Butler County Commissioners and Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cincinnati.
He said Oxford lacks much-needed affordable housing.
“This is a hand up, not a hand out,” he said.
The Webers will pay a monthly mortgage of $467 that will include insurance and taxes, she said. That will be about what they were paying for the lot and utilities in the local trailer park, she said.
The home on Carter Court was already built when the Webers were accepted into the program. She said they worked a few hours on the home, but mostly completed their volunteer hours on other Habitat for Humanity homes in Hamilton.
Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit Christian housing ministry that seeks to eliminate substandard housing by building, renovating and repairing simple, decent, affordable homes to sell to low-income families in need, Lee said.
The City of Cincinnati ranks the fifth lowest for homeownership of comparable sized cities with a homeownership rate of 42 percent compared to the national average of 67 percent, he said. Further, more than 250,000 local families throughout the agency’s nine-county service area cannot afford a place to live, he said. Children of homeowners statistically achieve higher scores in math and reading and are less likely to have behavior problems, and they are more likely to graduate from high school and attend college, he said.
During Saturday’s ceremony, Weber was asked what her late mother would’ve thought about her new home.
“She’s up there crying,” Kim Weber said. “She would be proud.”
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