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Home for the Holidays

Published 1:30 am Thursday, November 23, 2023

Sunny skies welcomed new homeowners as they were joined by area contractors, family and friends, and Peninsula Housing Authority staff here in front of 481 Maloney Lane; one of the five new homes recently completed and ready to move in, just before Thanksgiving. Photos Christi Baron
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Sunny skies welcomed new homeowners as they were joined by area contractors, family and friends, and Peninsula Housing Authority staff here in front of 481 Maloney Lane; one of the five new homes recently completed and ready to move in, just before Thanksgiving. Photos Christi Baron

Sunny skies welcomed new homeowners as they were joined by area contractors, family and friends, and Peninsula Housing Authority staff here in front of 481 Maloney Lane; one of the five new homes recently completed and ready to move in, just before Thanksgiving. Photos Christi Baron
All family members of each family received a quilt. Here Tawnya Rowley, standing nearest back to the camera, looks on as a quilt is wrapped around a family member. Rowley also took a moment to thank her employer, Mariposa House, for working with her schedule so she was able to complete her required hours of work.
The Zane and Sara Johnson family was first up …they all got quilts, a gift card, a basket of goodies, and the all-important… keys to their new home!
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It will literally be “Home for the Holidays” for five Forks families as they all received keys to their new homes last Friday. It has been a long road for some …as they worked through COVID, supply chain issues, rising costs, and rain and wind.

The program has no downpayment but all involved had to work to complete all homes before they could all move in which equaled their down payments.

On July 23, 2020, the families closed their construction loans with assistance from Peninsula Housing Authority’s Mutual Self-Help Program supported by funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development. This was the first Mutual Self-Help build group to construct homes in Forks.

The path from application to closing to actually moving in took years and these folks overcame some major hurdles on their individual journeys. They waited patiently to finally see their dream of homeownership become reality. Constructing these five homes using the mutual self-help method required each family to dedicate 32 hours a week working on each other’s houses. The result was five three-bedroom, two-bathroom single-family residences with garages.

All participants transitioned from renting in Forks to homeownership, the cornerstone of our country.

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