Wonderful Opportunity

I am really excited. I have shared with you that one of my tasks as the Family Services Coordinator at TriState Habitat for Humanity is to recruit families to apply for our home ownership program. It's surprising, but we have a hard time finding families who qualify for our program. I think many of them de-select themselves before ever requesting an application.
They may think that they wouldn't qualify because they make too much. While we do work with families who have our income guidelines, most often families who apply are rejected for our home ownership program because they don't meet the minimum income requirements. Very few families are rejected because they are over the income guidelines.
A lot of people also think that Habitat builds houses for homeless people which is not true. While some of our families may be homeless because they are currently living with family or friends, most of our applicants are living in some kind of substandard housing that they are renting.
Along with this, I think that a lot of single people and couples with no children don't apply because they think that Habitat only builds homes for families who have young children. However, our definition of a family is one or more people.
I think some people also don't apply because they are worried about their credit. While we ask people to work to pay down their debt and begin repairing their credit, our Habitat affiliate does not turn families down because of low credit scores. In fact, I often tell people who call the Habitat office that if we only built homes for people with perfect credit, we would not be building any homes. Habitat for many families is a second chance. Many of them have had problems with credit in the past and we both hold them accountable and offer them grace in this area of their lives.
So, I was very excited today when I made a huge breakthrough in my recruitment efforts. I received permission from the City of Hamilton Schools to distribute fliers to all of the students in the system. When the person in the administrative office told me that this would be around 9,000 students, I was dumbfounded. What a blessing! We are going to be able to reach 9,000 families who may not know about Habitat. We are going to be able to send fliers home with children who may be living in substandard housing. People who before may have de-selected themselves for one reason or another may give Habitat another thought and take the risk to request an application. We might just be able to plant seeds of hope in the hearts of people living in some pretty awful circumstances.
One reason this is also very exciting is that the City of Hamilton, Ohio is a very good partner with TriState Habitat for Humanity. We are working together to build several new homes in Hamilton and hopefully will be able to partner with the city through the new Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative. This will allow us to possibly transform whole blocks and even neighborhoods.
To think that one of these fliers might be carried home by a child living in poverty to a parent who longs to fulfill a dream of home ownership, is truly humbling to me. Along with this, I continue to be amazed by the doors that God opens to the mission and ministry of TriState Habitat for Humanity. God is definitely up to something good and I am so grateful that I can be a part of it. I ask for your prayers as we prepare to distribute these fliers.
Thanks for being a part of my journey!