FILER, Idaho — The Self Help Housing program is run by the South Central Community Action Partnership. It aims to give qualifying residents a boost towards home ownership, by requiring them to put 35-hours each week into labor for their house — and the other houses in the group — they save considerably on the total cost of a new house.
- This is the 17th group of homeowner-builders the program has overseen.
- The program is for residents based on income and ability to work 35 hours a week on the homes in the group.
- Starting with the groundbreaking all the way to the ribbon cutting, homeowner builders will perform 65% of the work building the new houses. Contractors complete technical work like electric, plumbing, and concrete.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
Kassidie Brooks: "I have never built really anything before in my life, so …reading a tape measure, oh my gosh has been a challenge, I have learned."
Raymond: "There's a learning curve with everything you do, but it's been fun. Long hours sometimes, but at the end of the day, I'm glad I get to be a part of it and glad I get to learn how to do this type of stuff."
Kassidie and Raymond are two people building homes for themselves and their future neighbors.
Kassidie: "Yeah, it's been fun knowing all the names of all the tools, so now anytime I hear anyone talk about construction, I know, which I thought I never would,"
Neither Kassidie nor Raymond had experience in construction, but by February, they both will have had a hand in every step of the process.
The program is Self Help Homebuilding, and it's an affordable housing program where qualifying participants put in 35 hours of labor a week on their future homes.
Sandra: "Families join together and we all just help each other build until the last house is done. And then, you know, we build a little neighborhood as we go along."
By providing most of the labor, the owners build sweat equity, saving on the total cost of a new home.
Sandra began her journey as a homeowner-builder. She built her house in last year's group of homeowner-builders, just up the street.
Sandra: "In these times, homeownership is a little bit more daunting, just by yourself. And I just thought that to find the program was something that was a serendipitous chance for me to get in, where any other way was just much harder.
Bryan Arrington has overseen six of these groups around the Magic Valley. Building homes, and building communities.
Bryan Arrington: "This whole street is all a community now, that people have worked together, that they all know how much work they had to put into it, how frustrating it was, but how exciting it was, and so now you have a community that's stronger."
The program helps make a dream a reality.
Raymond Salvas: “Me, personally, I kind of like challenges, so some of that stuff - it is hard to begin with, but once you kind of learn, it's not too bad. You can get into a rhythm, get your flow going, get into a system."
