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01/15/2020 07:10 AMWestbrook residents will have the opportunity to learn about the Habitat for Humanity house to be built on recently purchased land on Hammock Road North at an open-house style meeting in January. Middlesex Habitat for Humanity (MH4H), together with the town of Westbrook, will hold the kick off meeting on Thursday, Jan. 23, from 5 to 7 p.m. at Town Hall.
MH4H Executive Director Sarah Bird will be there, along with Board of Directors President David Evangelisti and members of the organization’s staff. Dustin and Yiran Fitzpatrick, a young couple that partnered with MH4H to build a home in Portland, will also be at the meeting. Dustin Fitzpatrick is a combat veteran who served in the Marine Corps. He and Yiran helped build and purchased a home that was designated for a veteran family. They have two children.
Residents can drop in at any time during the meeting’s two-hour window to meet representatives of the program, ask questions, learn about the family selection process, or sign up to volunteer. Refreshments will be served.
Bird hopes the meeting will help to clear up any misconceptions that the public might have about Habitat for Humanity.
“People that might be concerned that we give houses away can come and talk to us about what our program is,” she said.
Prospective buyers of a Habitat for Humanity home must be employed, must be earning between 25 to 60 percent of the median income, and must be willing to partner with MH4H to build the house. Each member of the family 18 and older will be required to put in 200 hours of “sweat equity.”
Construction of the three-bedroom, roughly 1,200-square-foot ranch-style house will likely begin in late March or early April, Bird said, depending largely on the weather.
Those who might be interested in partnering with MH4H to build and purchase the house are welcome to attend the meeting to learn about the steps they can take to apply, although applications will not be available at the Jan. 23 meeting. A separate meeting on Monday, Feb. 3 will be specially geared to applicants.
“We’ll walk through the application...[and] go into more detail about the qualifications” necessary to purchase the home” at the February meeting, Bird explained.
The Feb. 3 application meeting “will actually open up our application cycle,” she continued. “Then at any time within the six-week cycle, people can come [to the MH4H offices in Cromwell] and get an application from us. But we highly suggest that they come to the meeting.”
There is no fee to apply.
The kick off meeting will take place on Thursday, Jan. 23 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Multi-Purpose Room at Westbrook Town Hall, 866 Boston Post Road. The application information meeting will be held on Monday, Feb. 3 at 6 p.m. in the South Conference Room, Westbrook Town Hall. Middlesex Habitat for Humanity is located at 34 Shunpike Road in Cromwell; For more information, visit habitatmiddlesex.org.