Habitat for Humanity in Miramichi ready to welcome families home

Families will soon move into the first two Habitat for Humanity homes built in Miramichi.

Sabrina Mills and her husband Alex Doyle, along with their two daughters, aged five and 10, and their pug Beau, are set to move into one unit of a brand new duplex.

The family has spent years moving from rental to rental, and Mills can't wait to move out of their current two-bedroom mini-home with one closet.

"I'm most excited for my kids to have their own rooms," she said, adding the extra storage and all the new closets in the unit are a close second.

A look inside the one of the units during the building process. (Submitted by Perry Kendall)

Each unit of the new duplex has three bedrooms and one bathroom, along with an unfinished basement which gives families the option to add more finished space down the road if needed.

Mills said the family put in a lot of hard work to make this dream come to life, including painting the entire unit top to bottom. Doyle, who was a professional painter, took the lead on that and Mills will handle the landscaping as her next project.

Habitat for Humanity New Brunswick has housed nearly 90 families across the province.

CEO Perry Kendall says the need for affordable homes for low-income working families is huge.

"The options are so limited right now, especially for a family that the typical two-bedroom apartment wouldn't necessarily accommodate well," he said.

"We see that need in all four of the larger cities across the province but also in many, many other smaller communities ... It's really become a significant challenge."

Habitat for Humanity New Brunswick CEO Perry Kendall says the non-profit organization currently has 11 new homes underway across the province. (Submitted by Perry Kendall)

Kendall said it's challenging to select who gets to move into every new home since the organization receives a large number of applications.

The way the non-profit group selects families for homes is based on three criteria, he said.

The first is need and whether the family is living in conditions that are unaffordable, unsafe or inappropriate for the size of the family. The second is based on whether they are financially able to maintain and pay for a home, and the third is whether the family is willing to contribute 500 volunteer hours.

All Habitat for Humanity homes are designed and built to be affordable. Kendall says they build the homes "about 50 per cent above code as far as energy efficiency, insulation, air sealing, triple glazed windows — those sorts of things."

A former professional painter, Alex Doyle teaches his daughter to paint as they get their new home from Habitat for Humanity ready to go. (Submitted by Sabrina Mills)

It also has a mortgage model that is different from the big banks.

"First off, there's no down payment. Secondly, there's very minimal interest. And thirdly, payments are geared to income," Kendall said.

"So at no point through their time with us are they ever paying more than 25 per cent of their earned income toward their mortgage and property tax payment."

Kendall said more projects and homes are in the works, with 11 other homes currently under construction across the province.

"Right next door, the hole is already in the ground where we're building another duplex that will be finished later this year. And we also have a larger development that is close to being finalized in another part of the city," he said.

That will mean an additional 12 to 14 homes will be built over the next three years in Miramichi, he said.

To get those homes off the ground, Habitat for Humanity depends on contributions from volunteers and on funding from all levels of government.

"2023 was the first time that we've had support from three levels of government. So in the case of these homes that we're building in Miramichi, the land was donated to us by the city," Kendall said.

"The one and only thing that we spend our current families' mortgage payments on is building and maintaining homes."

Mills says that while her family had been saving and working hard to afford a home of their own, it likely would have taken until her daughters graduated to reach that goal — without Habitat for Humanity.

"With the rising costs in the economy and stuff, it's not easy for any family right now to try and purchase a home. It's just the prices of everything going up and it's near impossible to save just for that down payment to mortgage a home," she said.

"But I mean I was hopeful, and I did tell myself that if this didn't work out, 'you just try again' ... You know, I'm not one to give up."