First of six Columbia Falls Habitat homes completed
By NANCY KIMBALL
The Daily Inter Lake
Tuesday was a day for a big celebration.
And it was a day for that long-awaited collective sigh of relief.
It was the day Kip and Kristi McKessick and their four children, ages 10, 12, 14 and almost 15, announced to the world that they at last are settled in a home of their own, courtesy of Habitat for Humanity.
"It feels so good to finally be in this home," Kristi McKessick said, surrounded by her four children. "I truly feel blessed."
The newly finished 1,153-square-foot house was packed with well-wishers during Tuesday's noontime dedication at the Columbia Falls home.
It is the first of six homes to be built at the north end of Fourth Street East, on abandoned well-site land that the city of Columbia Falls donated to Habitat in exchange for extending streets, sewer and water lines to the area.
Tracy and Dewayne Robinson are scant weeks away from moving in next door. Volunteer workers expect to have that Habitat house finished in time for
the Robinsons to celebrate Christmas in their new home.
Across the street, an all-woman build is planned for next spring. Montana's First Lady Nancy Schweitzer is expected to lead off the crew of women, with direction from men in the trades as needed.
Habitat Executive Director Jane Leivo said the six-home project is the biggest single undertaking ever initiated by the Flathead Valley chapter of Habitat for Humanity.
The nondenominational national organization screens families for need and income - they must make no more than 50 percent of the local median income but still have the means to repay the interest-free mortgage - then lines up materials, subcontractors and volunteers to build the entire home.
In exchange, each family puts in 500 hours of sweat equity to build their own or help with others' homes. Kristi McKessick said she and her family put in about 2,000 hours. They lined up friends and others for another 300 or so hours.
Those hours were honored on Tuesday.
Skip Beardsley, who volunteered hundreds of hours as the construction supervisor for the McKessick home, handed over the official key during the dedication ceremony.
Leivo offered blessings and official congratulations. Jackie Neumiller, who coordinated the small army of volunteers who made the McKessicks' dream a reality, was on hand to celebrate the fruit of her team's work.
The only person on the scene missing was Kip McKessick. He was hard at work, earning the paycheck that will cover his family's mortgage and continue the cycle for yet another family.
The McKessick home is the 18th Habitat house built in the Flathead since the organization began constructing homes here in 1989.
Leivo said she always is looking for families in need of housing. Each week she fields many calls, but only a fraction of the applications she mails out are returned.
"They're afraid they're not going to get picked - like me," Kristi McKessick said of her own trepidation.
Some have bad credit and assume they will be turned down for a loan, Leivo said. But through classes in managing credit and home ownership, she has watched many make the leap.
"That's where the hope comes in," Leivo said. "We're trying to build hope, not discouragement. We work with you to repair your credit.
"We work on their lives. We work on their habits. We work on their spending habits," Leivo said. "But they have to be willing to work, and work hard. We never give them money."
If families have failed in the past, Leivo and the Habitat crew help them try again.
That's the way it was with the McKessicks. After losing their home in Libby and eventually having their credit saved by a well-placed word from Sen. Conrad Burns to the U.S.D.A.'s housing program, they worked their way back to respectable credit and a shot at a new home.
"Everything we've done," Kristi McKessick said, "has been through prayer."
Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com