A family gets a home of their own for the holidays

"I can hardly believe that this is happening now," said Sylvia Wilson, standing in the living room of a house that she will soon move into – and own.

She and her daughters will have a home of their own, just in time for Christmas and New Year's, thanks to literally hundreds of volunteers and donors and a nonprofit called Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County.

Occasionally wiping away tears, she spoke to dozens of those helpers Friday evening. They packed that living room, the kitchen and crowded halfway up the stairs.

It was a sort of housewarming.

And for the local Habitat, it was the 17th house built for a "partner family," and the second one situated on Thompson Street in the City of Poughkeepsie.

Wilson, along with daughters Natasha, 30, and Justice, 12, have been trying to get into the program since 2012. They finally made it this time.

Habitat, affiliated with the national nonprofit, builds houses or rehabilitates broken-down homes, like this one was. The owner families have incomes that range from 30 percent to 60 percent of the area's median income.

Habitat does fundraising, seeks donations of money and material and volunteer hours from amateurs and professionals, and requires work hours from the new homeowners, too.

"I've developed a newfound acceptance of my strength," said Wilson.

She will be leaving a rental elsewhere in the city, gladly.

"At one point last year, I was so depressed at continuing to live where we did," she said. "How come I didn't feel proud?"

This house is not free. Habitat offers a zero-interest loan tailored to the family's means.

"The mortgage is based on my income and I won't go broke," Wilson said.

The house was obtained from a family that had left and could not maintain it. Fixing it up was lots of work, said Mike Pike, "build co-captain" for the project with Barbara Adams.

"We didn't think this floor would even hold our weight," Pike said, recalling the day they walked in. "The chimney was falling down and the stairs were falling down."

Peter Carr, president of the Habitat board, hailed the Dyson Foundation for adopting Habitat and providing financial aid. "This is something that's going to springboard us into more homes," he said.

Maureen Lashlee, executive director of Habitat, noted that this is the second home the group has done on Thompson Street.

"It's no secret that we're a little bit challenged in this neighborhood," she said, but progress is being made that everyone who invests in this work can be proud of.

"They get to create safe and affordable housing," she said. And the city, struggling with its own finances, gets a boost to the tax base as the family creates more wealth for itself and rising spending then circulates in the community, Lashlee said.

Craig Wolf: 845-437-4815; cwolf@poughkeepsiejournal.com; Twitter: @craigwolfPJ

HOW TO HELP

Habitat for Humanity of Dutchess County is a local nonprofit affiliated with a national charity that builds affordable housing for families. The local group's website is: habitatdutchess.org. Its office is at 45 Catharine St., Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 and the phone is 845-475-9336. It relies heavily on volunteers and donations.