RIVERTON, Utah — If you’ve bought a home, you know it’s not just a “one time purchase”.
If you live in it long enough you must keep purchasing and purchasing.
Homeowner Rachel Johnson explained.
“Our house is older. We live in an older part of Riverton and as things get older, they break down and trying to keep up with repairs sometimes is hard,” said Rachel. “Some of it is just prohibitive, we can’t do it and some of it is sometimes the cost is just out of reach.”
Rachel isn’t alone.
In fact, the gap between those can even afford their first home and those who can’t, is widening.
“That’s a group that we call the missing middle,” said Carin Crowe, Habitat for Humanity Greater Salt Lake’s CEO, “There are individuals that are in that demographic that will simply never afford a home, not with the rate that home prices are going for right now.”
Crowe says they serve a demographic that fall between 30 to 60 percent AMI.
AMI is “area median income”, that’s the midpoint of the income distribution in a specific geographic area.
And while creating more affordable housing has long been touted on Utah’s Capitol Hill, the housing supply here falls short.
Nearly 40 percent of renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing.
Home prices here have skyrocketed by more than 40 percent in the last five years.
The average cost of a home in Salt Lake City now exceeds half a million dollars.
This is where Habitat for Humanity comes in.
The Salt Lake chapter had recently completed a 20-home development and are preparing to build in Tooele County and Magna, all new homes for families who need them.
Through the organization’s homebuyer program, lower-income families receive a 30-year, zero percent interest mortgage.
But it also requires some elbow grease.
The family completes 225 hours of sweat equity, picking up a hammer and nails and working alongside volunteers to help complete the build.
“Families should not be paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing,” says Crowe. “What we do when someone is accepted into the program, when they go to sign their mortgage, we have an affordability calculator. Not every person may have the same mortgage and maybe not the same payment.”
Then there’s the Critical Home Repair Program.
It’s Habitat’s effort to stabilize aging and at-risk homes in Utah.
Anything from roof repairs to mold remediation, to fixing fall hazards, the goal is to keep families in their homes for as long as possible.
Remember Rachel’s older home in Riverton?
It’s the reason she reached out to Habitat for Humanity in the first place.
She said the program has brought her family of six much-needed financial and emotional relief.
“Initially all we thought we needed was a water heater repair, but through the application process they had some evaluators come out and look and they determined that we would also benefit from window replacement and a new roof,” said Rachel. “We hadn’t replaced the windows or the roof and we’ve lived in our house for 18 years.”
If you’d like to donate to Habitat’s causes or sign up for one of their programs, click here.
To purchase tickets for their upcoming fundraising gala, click here.
