Habitat for Humanity continues Jackson home project, begins 2 in Cape

As the Cape Area Habitat for Humanity’s home project in Jackson takes shape, two more have begun in Cape Girardeau.

Construction on a 1,100-square-foot residence at 828 James St. has been slow, Cape Area Habitat for Humanity executive director Al Stoverink said Wednesday, but it remains on schedule.

“It took a while to get all the utilities in, but [the building plans] are all as was laid out before,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of rain delays, as everybody else has, so it’s been pretty slow coming out of the ground.”

Rain even forced the group to hold its June 1 groundbreaking at the nearby Jackson Civic Center.

Stoverink said it hopes to have the home finished by Thanksgiving. The basement and exterior walls have been erected.

“Next, they’re started in on the interior walls, and we’ll be putting up trusses as they arrive over the next several days,” Stoverink said.

Meanwhile, Habitat for Humanity is building similarly sized houses at 1411 N. Clark Ave. and 1118 Ranney St. in Cape Girardeau.

“They’re pretty much the same house,” Stoverink said. “The house on Clark [Avenue] is also a walkout basement, but it won’t be a finished basement.”

The Ranney Street house, however, will be slab-on-grade.

The Cape Girardeau houses are expected to be finished about Christmas. Families have been approved for all three houses.

“That’s our plan,” Stoverink said. “We’ll see what the weather does to us. These things are kind of hard to predict ... .”

The Jackson house is the 55th that Habitat for Humanity has built in the Cape Girardeau area, and Stoverink said his organization has no plans to slow down.

“We’ve got another house to get started on this fall,” he said. “So we’ll need lots of help and lots of donations and lots of volunteer hours.”

The great majority of construction on Habitat for Humanity houses is done by volunteers.

So far, Stoverink said it has had enough help, but with as many as four projects going on at once, he urged residents to lend a hand.

“The only way we could do this is with a lot of support from the community,” he said.

Before construction began, residents near the Jackson site complained about construction traffic in their neighborhood. But Habitat for Humanity, with the city’s help, was able to widen James Street.

“We were able to put a pretty wide swath of rock and cement mix along either side of the road where we’re working, so now we’ve got plenty of parking space there for our volunteers,” Stoverink said. “And we’re talking with the city [of Jackson] about how we might get that paved with asphalt as part of our next build in that area that we would like to do next summer.”

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3627