Welcome Home – From Timber to Technology
Published 2:00 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008
They have been waiting for this week for a long, long while, wishing silently that the hands of time would miraculously speed up and August would arrive, filled with its promise of hope.
Diligently they have worked, determined to make this new life they are in the process of fashioning a good one. It has not been an easy task.
Those 20 homeowners who will take part in the Habitat for Humanity of East King County Snoqualmie blitz build – which began Monday, Aug. 6 and ends Saturday, Aug. 18 – and the hundreds of volunteers who will join them are not simply building houses. They are building something far grander.
“We like to say that we’re not just creating a home, we’Ore creating a community, a neighborhood,” said David McDaniels, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of East King County. The Snoqualmie project is the organizationOs largest ever.
The homeowners have poured the concrete to their foundations. They have helped each other set the footings to their houses. They have gone to potluck dinners together. Their children have played together.
And they have become friends in the process.
The Statens
“This is the fifth move,” said Cyndie Staten of her family’s impending relocation to Snoqualmie, “and I’m pretty much counting on it to be the last one for quite a while.”
Four years ago, the Statens – Cyndie, Curt and sons Sam, 10, Ben, 8 minus Joe, 2 – moved to Western Washington from Modesto, Calif., where Curt was a high-school teacher. After living with family members for a while, they set out on their own.
For her, the scariest moment came when the family was forced to live at a homeless shelter. However, things improved when they moved into a transitional housing program in Redmond. They stayed there for 11U2 years. It was through their caseworker that the Statens were encouraged to contact Habitat for Humanity.
The Statens had often thought about buying their own house, but the Eastside did not have much to offer that fit within their budget.
“We never really looked at buying because we really didn’t think it was possible,” Cyndie said.
They attended an informational meeting about Habitat in January 1999. Throughout the spring, summer and into the fall, the family was the subject of background checks, credit checks, reference checks and interviews, all to ensure they would meet the requirements of the Habitat program. Sitting on pins and needles, the entire time, it wasn’t until October that they learned their fate.
They’d been approved.
“I never had a clue,” Cyndie said of the time leading to the day she and Curt received their letter in the mail.
At first, the couple was slated to live in one of 24 townhouses at Habitat’s Patterson Park project in Redmond. After hearing about the non-profit organization’Os plans for Snoqualmie, they asked McDaniels if it would be all right for them to wait. Curt works as a counselor at Echo Glen Children’s Center. It would take him less than 10 minutes to get to his job from the Snoqualmie Ridge site.
McDaniels said absolutely.
“We were actually the first family accepted up at the Ridge, so that was pretty cool,” she said.
But they were the last to select their house after completing 300 of the 500 “sweat-equity” hours needed for Habitat families. Those hours could be accumulated by working on their house at the Snoqualmie site, staffing the Habitat office in Redmond and laboring at the organization’s Coal Creek Terrace project in Newcastle, comprising 12 townhouses.
Cyndie said she wouldn’t have it any other way. The house they picked is perfect.
“I don’t think I would want any other one. We have a beautiful new home,” she said.
For the past two years, the Statens have been living in a YMCA-run apartment complex in Bellevue, where Cyndie serves as the complex’s manager.
“I really just think it was the work of the Lord,” she said of her family’s experiences. “We could not have planned it any better.
“This will be our house, and that’s the best part about this.”
The Wilsons
For the Wilsons, the Snoqualmie blitz build is more than an exercise in building a house. They are forming lifelong relationships with their soon-to-be neighbors.
“We’re not just friends up here. WeOre like a big, adopted family,” said Dave, whose own family includes his wife, Debbie, daughters Alyssa, 10, Kara, 8, Cheyenne, 7, and sons Brandon, 5, and Tannner, 3.
On a recent visit to the Ridge, the Wilson children clambered up on the house’s foundation, asking their parents where the stairs would be and where the living room would be located.
“They are excited about the new house,” Debbie said of her children. “There’ll be another bedroom and another bathroom, and that’s a big plus.”
The Wilsons’ connection to the Snoqualmie blitz build goes back to when Dave, who works as a truck driver for North Fork Enterprises-Littlejohn Inc., helped clear the site.
With seven people living on one paycheck and renting a small house among the woods near North Bend, the prospect of owning his own house intrigued him. He attending a meeting, and there, “I found out that I more than qualified,” he said.
About three months after that first meeting in May 2000, the couple learned the news that they’d been accepted. They still remember the date: Aug. 30, 2000.
In July, the Wilsons hosted a potluck dinner at their current house. Many of the future homeowners attended, helping to cement the bonds of friendship between families.
“Everybody got along great. We’ve got some good friendships here,” Debbie said.
Dave said unlike other communities, there’s a greater level of trust between Habitat homeowners because they are working together, side-by-side, to build a neighborhood. The WilsonsO circle of friends has even grown to include the AmeriCorps youth volunteers working at the site.
“We’ve all helped on everybody’s foundation,” Dave said. And that work makes owning his own house even more rewarding.
“It’s a hand-up instead of a hand-out,” he said Habitat’s effort to build affordable housing. “They make you work for it.”
They look forward to watching the community grow over the years. After the blitz build, three or four new houses will mostly likely be built this fall, with a grand total of 50 houses slated for the site. Five families are already approved for the next phase of building.
“This is such a big project,” Debbie said. “We’re learning along the way with [Habitat], thatOs for sure. This is a big undertaking for them.”
She added she plans to be there in the future to help the Redmond-based organization, which originally got its start in Carnation.
“I almost feel like I can’t leave them behind,” she said.
The Duquettes
Daniel Duquette can’t wait to watch the houses go up on by one at the Snoqualmie site.
“I’ve always liked things where I do something and see the results, and is going to be just like that, only it’s my home and 19 others,” he said.
For him, helping to build his three bedroom house not only puts a roof over his family’s head, it creates a better life for his wife, Barbara, daughter Tisha, 16, and sons Joshua, 10, and Sam, 8.
“We’re basically going to be in a 20-year, no-interest loan to buy our house, and nobody will ever take it our from under our feet,” he said. “And if we want to retire there, we can do that.
“I’m definitely not going to be ashamed to live there 15 years from now, 20 years from now.”
That sense of stability is important to the Duquettes of North Bend. The family owns the mobile home in which they live, but they pay rent for the lot underneath. Unlike those who rent an apartment, the Duquettes’ rent can increase at-will.
“We were in a position where we didn’t figure we’d be able to stay in the Valley much longer,” Daniel said.
The family makes do on Barbara’s salary working as a customer service representative for Farmer’s New World Life, an insurance agency on Mercer Island, and Daniel’s part-time work as a janitor at
