Habitat’s 500,000th home!!

Habitat For Humanity Suffolk County

Below are Bios on Some of The Families Habitat Of Suffolk has given homes to, and that we have had the honor to clean and prep the homes for “Move In Day”!

Cheri, Mathew, and Madison move into Habitat Suffolk’s 7th Women Build. 

Surprise guest from the North Pole hands the keys over to Cheri on Saturday, December 18th 2010. Thank you to all the sponsors that helped make our 7th Women build a success!

Thank you to …

• Women Build leaders and volunteers
•  Lowes Women Build
•  NAWIC, Laura Bush, President,
• NY Community Bank Foundation, Marian Conway, Executive Director
• Soroptimist Intl of Huntington
• Pt Jeff Rotary
• Bovis Lend Lease
• Emerald Magic for the wonderful Christmas decor
• Teresa’s Family Cleaning
• The Electrical Training Center
• and Sue Benyo for the beautiful murals in the children’s rooms
• Join our next Women Build today

Yesenia Flete & Family

Yesenia, Vanessa, and Francisca

Yesenia Flete:

All of my life I’ve seen my mother struggle, as a single parent to make ends meet, to have food on the table and most importantly to have a roof over our heads. For a long time we were living in Brownsville projects a part of the NYC Public Housing System [in Brooklyn].  This community was surrounded by crime and poverty. Looking for a way out, I decided to go away to college, and before I left, I promised my mother that I would make something out of myself and help her move out of the projects. It wasn’t until last year that we were able to relocate to a better community; however we were greeted by broken stairs, uneven floors, mold, and interruptions in heat and hot water.

Today Habitat is giving me a helping hand and assisting me with my long-term goal of providing a better quality of life to my family. I am forever thankful to the Habitat organization and the hard working volunteers. I consider all of the habitat members and its volunteers like a part of my extended family. I really appreciate your support. Thank you for making my dream come true.

Francisca (Yesenia’s mother): “Without Habitat it would have been very difficult to buy a house. Thank you Habitat for helping my family finally move forward in the ownership process. Now we could have a home in a safe and healthy environment”.

Vanessa (Yesenia’s younger sister): “I am so excited to soon be living in a Habitat home where I could finally have my own room.  The apartment we live in now is in horrible condition.  I thought we were going to be stuck living at a place I couldn’t even consider my home.  I am grateful to everyone at habitat for giving us a place to finally call home”.

The Jean-Francois Family

Monique and Joseph Jean- Francois are a hard working couple excited to be future homeowners through Habitat for Humanity of Suffolk! Originally from Haiti, the Jean-Francois family moved to New York several years ago; their daughter Saada-Manou (11 months) was born here on Long Island. After the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January 2010, their son Jeff was permitted to join them in New York. The day after his arrival to the U.S., he joined Monique for his first Habitat experience—helping to build his family’s future Bellport home! Fluent in French, Spanish, and Creole, Jeff is perfecting his English and hopes to earn a college degree. Monique works as a nursing assistant, and Joseph works as a home health aide.

The family currently lives in a cramped, one-bedroom apartment in Huntington Station. The Francois family applied for Habitat homeownership in September 2009; they were soon accepted into the program and began their sweat equity at their house wall-raising on January 23, 2010. The completion date is scheduled for fall 2010!

We were happy to help out these deserving families by providing the final clean after all the construction was finished, so that their new homes were ready to move into.

Saenz Family Bio

Jessica Saenz is a hard working Mom who was selected for Habitat home ownership in June 2009.  Jessica works two jobs as a case worker for the Family Service League and a night counselor at Transition Services of Long Island.  Jessica will be living with her long-term boyfriend Gene and their two children, Angelique, age 9, and Adrian, age 7.  The family will be relocating from a cramped apartment in Farmingville to a new Habitat home in Bellport.  In her application Jessica says she “would like more than anything for my children to grow up in a home & will continue to do whatever is necessary to ensure my children grow up under different circumstances than mine.” The new home will allow Angelique and Adrian to have separate rooms and the house will be Jessica and Gene’s first experience in home ownership.  They were accepted for a Habitat home in June of 2009 and began working on their “sweat equity” hours in July.

http://www.habitatsuffolk.org/completed_projects.html

THE SUN-ZHANG FAMILY

In attempt to better their lives and further their education, Jingchuan Sun, Jie Zhang, and their daughter, Yifei (“Yify”), moved to the United States from China approximately 10 years ago. Soon after, Jingchuan earned his doctorate degree and worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. They moved to Long Island after Jingchuan accepted a Research Associate position at a local Long Island laboratory. Jie is currently working towards her nursing degree. They are currently living in a 270 square foot single car garage that was converted into an apartment. This is especially challenging when Yify is on holiday from her undergraduate studies; she recently completed her freshman year, majoring in both music and economics.

Through hard work and education they believed they could achieve the American Dream of homeownership.  The family learned about Habitat for Humanity of Suffolk through the Suffolk County website while researching affordable homeownership opportunities. They applied in April 2010 and were soon accepted into the program; their wall-raise took place on August 21. They are simply thrilled.

In their own words, in a letter written to Habitat volunteers: “In the past, we had sometimes given blame to the high house price or unfair society, or shamed [ourselves] for not being able to earn more money. Now as a member of the increasing Habitat family, our life is changed from worry and low self-esteem to happy and confident.”