Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Editor’s Note: This feature originally ran in the August/September edition of the LaGrange Living magazine, a publication produced bi-monthly by the LaGrange Daily News. If you would like to pick up a copy of LaGrange Living, please visit our office at 115 Broad St Suite 101.

Feature by Jeff Moore

A local non-profit group is helping the region’s residents along the path to home ownership, building housing for the homeless and assisting others with needed repairs so they can remain in their residences.

Habitat for Humanity Troup County Inc. has built 102 homes and currently has six more homes under construction, said Chief Executive Officer Sandie Pike, who has worked with the program for a total of 19 years.

In her six years leading Habitat, Pike is using grant opportunities to greatly increase the number of houses they build each year.

“We were building one house every two to three years,” she said. “Now, we’re building like 21 in the next two years.”

Additionally, the Troup County program is committed to aiding the homeless residents of the region.

“In four to six weeks, we will finalize a site plan for 10 homes that will be donated 100% to the homeless coalition in LaGrange,” Pike said. “I’m working with the homeless coalition and then Mike Wilson with New Ventures. He and his group donated the land on Webster for us to build those 10 and we should have those finished by February of next year.”

A similar effort is underway in the Alabama counties the program covers with the process getting underway for four more homes for homeless residents there.

The local Habitat for Humanity program in Troup County became an affiliate in March 1991.

After getting started, the local program decided to add two more Georgia counties, Heard and Harris. Then in 2006, Pike said they branched out into Alabama adding three more counties — Chambers, Randolph and Clay.

Through its Brush with Kindness program, Habitat comes to the aid of folks who lack the resources to make needed improvements to their homes.

“If someone needs a ramp because they’re injured or maybe they’ve lost a limb and they can’t get in and out of their home, we go and build ramps,” Pike said.

If someone has roof damage or has hail damage, she said Brush with Kindness has assisted.

“I’ve just been able to secure several million dollars for a repair program,” Pike said, explaining it is a health and safety initiative that allows them to support families with repairs that need to be done that might affect their health or their safety in their environment within the home.

These can include mold, outdated or unsafe electrical or outdated plumbing pipes. She said these would be not only health but also safety issues.

“Last year we remodeled three homes from start to finish in Lagrange on Vine Street,” Pike said. “We spent $95,000 to $120,000. That was the range for just those three houses each.”

Brush with Kindness is making a big difference for these homeowners.

“The last one, the lady was handicapped and disabled. She was in a wheelchair,” she said. “We created her a handicap bathroom, and we just completely redid her home.”

This home went from having a value of $5,000 to $145,000 when they were finished, Pike noted.

They just completed another project where Brush with Kindness made repairs to a tornado victim’s home in West Point. She said the owner didn’t have insurance, so there was nothing coming to help the man.

“He had been out of his home for over a year and he had no funds to build,” Pike explained. “He was stuck on someone’s sofa. So we went in and we did a complete remodel with the United Methodist Church Association. They have a disaster recovery team. Once it was finished there, we go in and fully decorate it with the ReStore furniture and it looks like a million dollars.”

How Habitat works

Pike said that each time they get ready to build a home, a family selection committee is formed with eight to 12 trusted residents who are willing to serve.

“Then we open it up for applications and then once the applications are received we have a cut off time,” she explained. The committee then reviews the applications to see who qualifies for the Habitat program. To do so, a family must fall within 60% to 80% of the county’s adjusted median annual income.

“If they fall under that income level and they truly have a real need for a house, we put them in line and then they have to complete budgeting classes, finance classes, homeownership classes,” Pike said. “The last piece is they have to be willing to put in 200 sweat equity work hours.”

Friends and family, she explained, can assist in helping a family accomplish their sweat equity requirement.

“If it’s someone that maybe has a disability or has some kind of physical challenge that keeps them from it, they could get support from other people to help them,” Pike said. There also are groups in the communities they serve who will assist program participants with tallying the hours of work.

As an added benefit for the community, Habitat allows those who do not meet the income requirements but want to get into a home to take the classes that will help them prepare.

“We get them homeownership ready,” Pike noted. “They’ve gone through the classes and then we connect them with a realtor of their choice.”

She said Circles of Lagrange is a key partner of Habitat for Humanity, doing the finance and budgeting classes.

“They take them through such an amazing process,” Pike said.

Operating ReStore

The ReStore operation in LaGrange is an important part of Troup County’s Habitat for Humanity program, funding the organization’s operational budget.

While the majority of the funding comes from grants, Pike said ReStore covers their overhead.

“We have a significant amount of just overhead like crazy and it’s not necessarily salaries,” she explained. “It’s insurance and the liability that we have to cover for construction.”

Without ReStore, Pike said Habitat wouldn’t be able to survive.

The store, located at 333 Main St. in LaGrange, is able to help fund Habitat because it operates with local volunteers.

Area residents can support the work of Habitat for Humanity and find great buys on items both new and used items.

“The coolest part is that you never know what you’re gonna find. And so it’s like a an adventure,” Pike said. “ The whole store is 20,000 square feet and it’s packed out. We have everything from furniture to dishes. We have construction items.”

ReStore receives a weekly donation from the Home Depot of Thomaston.

“They give us a large donation weekly,” she explained. “We have anything from landscape material to washers and dryers.”

Pike said Home Depot at times also sends flooring that ReStore can sell.

“We just get a large variety of quality new items from them weekly,” she added.

Customers will find a large supply of things such as doors and windows, along with small construction items — screws, nuts, bolts, lights, light fixtures.

“The majority, probably 75% of it, is your household goods,” Pike said. “The only thing we don’t take is clothes.”

Clothing that might come with ReStore donations is taken to Salvation Army, she added.

Pike said ReStore welcomes donations from local residents.

“We pick up five to maybe seven pickups a day from the community,” she said.

To donate, Pike said to call the store at 706-416-6332.

“Someone will be happy to schedule their appointment for pick up and we take gently used items,” she noted.

Anyone in the community interested in volunteering to work with the program or Restore can also call this number to sign up.

Habitat for Humanity is interested in finding a new location.

“We’re trying to figure that out because we know that if we could get in a more visible area,” she said, “we could double ourselves and that’s just gonna give even more to go back into our mission and vision.”

Habitat for Humanity receives key support from organizations such as the Calloway Foundation, Advent Lutheran Church of LaGrange, Fountain Baptist Church and Western Heights that support them in fulfilling their mission.