The joy of home ownership
The joy of home ownership
Couple begins work on Habitat for Humanity house
| CAPTION: Kurt Hauglie/Daily Mining Gazette Josh Erickson holds his 2-month-old daughter, Katelyn, as he looks at a copy of the Milwaukee Journal from 1960 he found in a closet of the Habitat for Humanity house he and his wife, Jennifer, and their four children will move into within the next year. About 20 people from Habitat took part in a presentation ceremony Monday. |
By KURT HAUGLIE, DMG Writer
CALUMET TOWNSHIP — For Jennifer and Josh Erickson, home ownership was something they strongly desired, but for one reason or another it just wasn’t happening. Now, thanks to Copper Country Habitat for Humanity, that desire is a reality.
Jennifer, Josh and their four children took part in a ceremony Monday for the official start of a Habitat for Humanity project to rehabilitate a house in Calumet Township recently donated to them.
Josh said after his wife talked to a friend of hers who had a Habitat house, Jennifer applied to the organization about a year ago to be considered as house recipients and they were accepted.
Getting accepted into the Habitat program coincided with other positive things that started happening in their lives, Josh said.
“We started going to church,” he said. “We started living our lives for our kids.”
Although she had been told she couldn’t have anymore children after their third, one and a half-year-old Jocelyn, Josh said Jennifer learned she was pregnant at about the same time they learned they were getting the house. Katelyn was born two months ago.
“Everything fell into place,” Josh said.
Right now, Josh said his family is living in Arbor Green low-income housing in Houghton, and although rent there is based on income, living in their new home will save them money.
“It’s actually going to be less for us here,” he said.
This isn’t the first time he’s worked on a Habitat for Humanity project, Josh said. He worked with his dad on a house in Ironwood.
Ron Gratz, CCHH board president, said the Erickson house is the second project for the organization and the first was a rehab, also.
Although Habitat members would like to get going on the Erickson project as soon as possible, Gratz said some preliminary work has to be done first. Because of new Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules regarding lead and asbestos, a company will have to be found to remove any residue of those items before work can begin.
“We have to find out how much they can do and how much we can do,” Gratz said.
Charlie Burger, CCHH construction coordinator, said exactly how many volunteers will be working on the house will depend on what is being done at a particular time and what day the work is being done.
“(It can be) anywhere from 25 to 125,” Burger said.
There will be a sequence of how work will be done, Burger said. First the house’s foundation will be strengthened, then the roof will be repaired, the second floor of the house will be demolished then the utilities will be located throughout the house.
“I don’t know for certain if we’re going to get any farther this year,” Burger said.
How much work can be done will depend on how much money is available, he said.
The Erickson’s house was donated by Garnet Heikkila, who said it’s been in his family since 1907. There were 12 children in his family, and his brother, Harold, lived there until two years ago.
Heikkila, who lives in Calumet, said his brother is blind and living in assisted living and he has macular degeneration.
“The two of us are getting too old to work around a house,” he said.
Deciding to donate the house wasn’t difficult for him and his brother, Heikkila said.
“We know it’s going to go to a good cause,” he said.
Jennifer said living in their new house will make raising their children — 3-year-old Bailey and 8-year-old Breanna are the other two — much easier and safer.
Although it needs a fence around it, the yard is quite large with plenty of room to play safely.
Recipients of Habitat for Humanity houses are required to put in 400 hours of “sweat equity” work into their houses and other Habitat houses, and Jennifer said not only will they meet that hour requirement, she expects they’ll exceed it.
The Habitat house will be the first they’ve owned, Jennifer said.
“It’s life changing,” she said.
Josh agreed with that sentiment.
“It means a lot,” he said. “It’s like a dream come true.”
Kurt Hauglie can be reached at khauglie@mininggazette.com
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