Perhaps ironically, while Jennifer Folk was working as an employee at Athens Stations Apartments, a complex she describes as primarily occupied by students, she was having trouble finding housing for herself.
“(I) started exploring my avenues (and) checking into how much it cost to rent a place in Athens, and I was like, ‘I can’t afford that,’” she said.
Around two years later, the single mother of one has a home to call her own, providing the comforts and security to her and her 11-year-old son that one could expect a house to bring.
Her story is made possible by the Southeast Ohio Habitat for Humanity organization, which built the house at 2 Alexander St., right off East State Street in Athens, where Folk and her son, Cameron, have lived for almost a year.
Folk’s application was accepted about a month after she applied in June 2012, with construction beginning in September. From there, Habitat had the house finished by June 2013, Kenneth Oehlers, the director of Southeast Ohio Habitat for Humanity, said.
Folk was accepted for a Habitat House because she fell within the organization’s three requirements for qualification: she had a need for housing, was willing to partner with Habitat to help build others’ houses and was able to pay a zero-interest mortgage.
Though Folk said she had some skills with power tools in the past, some parts of the construction were challenging.
Few homeowners may be comfortable doing work on a roof, but Folk had to overcome some of that while working on her house.
“I stood on the very top of the ladder, holding the peak of the trusses, ’cause we didn’t have interior walls then, nothing to help to make sure it wouldn’t tip over,” Folk said. “It was so scary.”
As a part of the deal, Folk had to spend 250 hours volunteering with Habitat, which she said she spent on her house, working at Habitat For Humanity’s Restore facility and at a recently opened Habitat House in Nelsonville.
Habitat’s Restore facility, on West Union Street, helps to drive money into the organization by selling donated furniture and hardware at reduced prices.
“We’re a thrift store just like any other thrift store, except we focus on home and hardware,” said Molly Blair, the Restore coordinator. “We are essentially a fundraising arm, much like OU Habitat, Women Raise the Roof and Faith Build Coalition.”
None of the donated goods go into the houses Habitat builds, but all of the store’s profits are donated to Habitat to help it build houses, Blair said.
Though Restore does not always partner with other Athens nonprofits, the organization helps out where it can.
“(We’re) trying to collaborate with some, but it’s hard because there are almost 300 nonprofits in Athens County,” Blair said. “We’re here to raise money.”
Building a habitat home costs about $70,000, yet it receives only about 15 percent of its revenue from state agencies, said Oehlers said.
“To build a house in Athens County, I need one dollar from every man, woman and child,” Oehlers said, noting that the county’s population sits at around 68,000.
Despite having such a large international organization to back it, the local branches of Habitat for Humanity tend to support the international organization more than the other way around, Oehlers said.
“International doesn’t come over and say ‘this is how many builds you’re going to do,’” Oehlers said. “Habitat is as big in the community as the community allows it to be.”
The construction of Folk’s house, which sits right behind Della Zona and Village Bakery, was almost completely done by women, as the project was undertaken by Habitat-affiliate, Women Raise the Roof. The only two men on the job were her father, Edward Folk, and the site supervisor, Steve Peters, she said.
When it came time to build, Ohio University students took notice. “There were always students out here,” she said.
The Ohio University Habitat for Humanity, a 40 to 50 member organization, travels throughout the county and country alike to help advance the cause of Habitat: to eliminate substandard housing.
“Habitat makes such a difference in this community since there are so many housing issues,” Mattie Ropelewski, the president of Ohio University Habitat for Humanity, said. “If you drive outside OU lines, you can see a lot of poverty and a lot of housing issues.”
This year, OU’s Habitat for Humanity has gone to places such as Elizabethtown, Ky., to help on builds, and even spent spring break in Atlantic Beach, Fla., helping out on a build, she said.
This year, Habitat is trying to partially sponsor another build, which will cost $10,000, Ropelewski said.
“I think it would look really good for OU to sponsor a build,” she said.
The student organization received $4,250 from Student Activities Commission towards that number, and though they are still making efforts to raise money, they could always use more members.
“That’s been our number-one goal this year: to build membership. ’Cause a lot of people simply come to one meeting and write on their resume that they’re a member when they’re really not a member,” Ropelewski said. “The people in the group … are very dedicated to Habitat, and that’s what I’m looking for.”
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