The cash infusion will lead to the construction of 67 new homes across the province.
In announcing the deal on Friday, Premier Ed Stelmach reiterated his government's promise to "end
homelessness in Alberta as we know it" through the construction of 11,000 affordable housing units by 2012.Habitat for Humanity's volunteers help build the homes, while the people who will live in them have to put in 500 hours of "sweat equity" as their end of the deal. Their mortgage is then handled by Habitat for Humanity at a lower rate.
"The lives that this is going to change is completely astronomical," said Stacey Mclean, 31, who has been living in a Habitat home in the Abbotsfield neighbourhood in Edmonton with her husband and three children since last June.
"I can't say how much this is going to help … when you've got families stuck in a one-bedroom apartment with two kids, a husband and a wife — and apartments now are expensive. Trying to save up a down payment for a house — you're not going to do it."
Alfred Nikolai, the executive director of Habitat for Humanity in Edmonton, said money invested by the provincial government will be put to good use.
"We mortgage the homes to our families and when they pay their mortgage to us then we reinvest that into more affordable housing," he said. "So, we'll have 67 families paying a mortgage [and] we won't have to take any money from government corporations or anybody, because the families that we're helping will help other families 10 years from now, 20 years and 30 years from now."
Source : www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2009/04/25/edm-housing-habitat.html
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