Habitat For Humanity has been in Kamloops since 2000 (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

NON-PROFIT SERIES

STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL: Habitat For Humanity Kamloops

Aug 6, 2019 | 6:07 PM

KAMLOOPS — In Part 7 of our series Struggle For Survival, we look at Habitat For Humanity. The international non-profit dates back to 1965 in the U.S. Habitat became well-known in the 1980s when former U.S. President Jimmy Carter started to help families build their forever home. In Kamloops, Habitat For Humanity was established in 2000. In nearly two decades of service in the city and the region, it has helped a handful of families get the upper hand they’ve needed by building their forever home. But there is much more the organization wants to do.

The Wyres family’s lives changed four years ago. That’s when their new home, built through Habitat For Humanity, was done and ready to move into.

“Without Habitat, my wife and I would have never owned our own home,” said Connelly Wyres. “We would spent the rest of our lives paying rent on someone else’s property, and when it came time for retirement, there’d be nothing.”

Connelly feels like his family won the lottery and they are forever grateful. It’s one of 10 units, mainly duplexes, built during Habitat’s time in the city. It has four other units elsewhere in the region that stretches as far north as Prince George.

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The main source of revenue is the ReStore to support the construction of houses. The rest come from donations and partnerships, but like many other non-profits, Habitat struggles to find other way to bring in funds.

“We sometimes suffer from what we call ‘donor fatigue’ where people are just burnt out from people soliciting donations,” said Miller. “So yearh, we have to be creative.”

Habitat Kamloops has signed a five-year partnership with the Rustle Valley Restorers, who will build the non-profit a vintage car to raffle off. Habitat hopes to generate six figures from the fundraiser. All the money goes towards purchasing land, which Miller says is one of the agency’s main financial challenges.

“Historically, Habitat’s model has been through donations and volunteer labour,” said Miller. “That limits us to a house a year or maybe two houses, a duplex, every two years.”

Adding to the challenge is an increase in Kamloops’ median housing price, which sits above $500,000 for the first time ever.

However, Habitat For Humanity already has plans in the works for more units in Kamloops and elsewhere in the region. Miller says there is an exciting project in the works with the Legion in Enderby.

“We’re looking at 45 to 65 units,” he said. “We have two locations in Salmon Arm that are under review right now. One would bring a 16-unit place, probably for seniors, and the other would be 18 units for families. The third site in Enderby is probably two yeras down the road, which is 30 to 40 single-family units.”

Miller says it also has partnerships with 70 First Nation group in B.C. He says Habitat is working with the Skeetchestn Indian Band on three houses.

“We’re working with them on a five-year housing program, and one of the projects, which is in the preliminary design, is a 16 to 20 units seniors project on their lands,” said Miller.

Connelly Wyres and his family has benefited from a Habitat-built home (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

Habitat Kamloops, like many other non-profits that focus on building affordable homes for people, are in a time of prosperity with governments.

“We have a window of opportunity, which I think will be three to seven years where federal and provincial governments are providing access to capital. We want to take advantage of that.”

Moving forward, the organization is also looking at a bigger space for its Habitat ReStore. The current one on Cariboo Place is running out of room for donations. It received, as an example, more than $2 million worth of product from OK Builders, which closed its doors in January. It doesn’t have the space for that amount of product.

The organization is looking at a location on 12th Street to increase its storage capacity, and ultimately increase the revenue it creates from the store.

“A lot of our materials are in storage. We’re not able to effectively get them on the floor or get them out on the marketplace,” said Miller. “So the building we’re looking at will give us 38,000 square feet of floor area.”

Connelly hopes more families like his can be blessed with a Habitat-built home.

“This makes it so that a family cannot worry about whether or not they have to eat hamburger seven days a week or if they have to eat Kraft dinner five days a week,” said Connelly. “When you own your own home at a decent mortgage, you can do things with your children you couldn’t do before.”