Habitat blesses new Leavenworth house

Saturday had been a long time coming for Patricia Johnson.

The Leavenworth resident said she had been looking for a house for herself for about a year. But, frustrating as the search for a home sometimes was, she said the right house never seemed to present itself. Another opportunity did — when she was directed by a pastor toward an item on the bulletin board at her church, Faith Evangelistic Center, about Heartland Habitat for Humanity’s newest house.

“It had been hanging there on the wall for about two months and nobody checked it out,” she said.

Heartland Habitat serves Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Johnson, Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties in Kansas. Like its national counterpart, the organization serves to provide “simple, decent” homes for low-income families.
Johnson’s house, at 1524 Shawnee Street in the city, was already mostly finished when she learned about it. Johnson said she turned in an application to be the owner and in the meantime did some more waiting.

“I came here one night and I saw it,” she said of the house. “I laid my hands on it and I claimed it. I said ‘if it is your will lord, this is my home.’ Maybe, I’d say a week or two after that, they called.”

Johnson said since then she has worked to complete paperwork and perform the needed 350 hours of “sweat equity,” which included both physical improvements like painting and homeowner education courses in Kansas City. With a full-time job at Walmart — the overnight shift — Johnson said meeting those requirements was sometimes difficult.

“Some days you think you’re not going to make it,” she said.

Some days, Johnson said she slept in her car outside of the house for an hour to gather the strength to work that day. The culmination of all of that work came during a house blessing Saturday.

Brenda Mortell, family services coordinator for Heartland Habitat, said Patricia never missed a beat when it came to the required paperwork — frequently, she did it with a smile on her face.

“She has been a blessing to us all,” she said.

Tom Lally, executive director for Heartland Habitat, said the process of homeowner education and “sweat equity” help the owners of Habitat houses make the transition to “homeowner.”

“Living in a structure, renting is so much different than owning a house because you are the responsible party” he said. “That gives you that sense of ownership and pride.”

David Bryant, the project manager for Leavenworth’s Habitat homes, said he and four volunteer crew members  — John Morris, Donley Brothers, Bill Wood and Forrest Holdeman — worked three and a half to four hours a day four days a week for the last nine months in order to finish the home.

Lally said the approach of the Leavenworth operations — using a small group of volunteers — is a unique one within the organization.

The result of the group’s efforts, Bryant said, will be a home for Johnson, her daughter Bianca and her children — built on a concrete slab with three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It is built with concrete walls, formed with rebar reinforcement and styrofoam on the inside and outside. This style of construction was used in two previous Habitat homes in Leavenworth and Bryant said it’s an efficient insulator.

While the four walls are no doubt solid, Lally said perhaps one of the most important pieces to completing the process is still to come.

“I do think that home is the family, the love, the traditions, the holidays, the faith,” he said. “And that becomes ingrained in the very fabric of the structure.”

Bryant said the economy has made it somewhat difficult to embark on a new project and Heartland Habitat is still looking for land donations for another home. In the meantime, Lally said the organization is preparing for a new program — the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, which will provide funds for homeowners to make minor repairs to their homes, sponsor clean up efforts and weatherization.