HABITAT FOR HUMANITY: HELPING FAMILIES COME HOME

Kathleen McGill painted a door for her new house that she is helping build with Habitat for Humanity.

Above, Dustin McGill, left, assisted Bill Cheeseman with checking a level before installing a permanent support for the front porch. The McGill family is helping Habitat for Humanity build their house with "sweat equity."

At right, David Lah, front, and Jim Blakemore attached an F-channel for the soffit of the house.

Kathleen McGill is building her own home. Every Saturday the dental assistant goes to 1518 Rand St. with her three children and works on the white frame structure.

She does not work alone. Every week there's a different crew helping her out. On March 29, for example, a handful of high school students whom McGill had never met before shoveled dirt and moved it from the front to the side of her home, while others hung up the siding and others helped hang a couple of doors.

McGill didn't know much about building a home before she started on her own last September. Still her white frame home has doors and windows that fit, a roof that keeps out the rain and wiring and electrical outlets.

Habitat for Humanity made it all possible. The not-for-profit organization -- an international Christian housing ministry based in Americus, Ga. -- supplies the skills, the capital and the much of the labor.

Bill Cheeseman, president of the local Habitat for Humanity chapter, spends most of his Saturdays teaching the volunteers and the future homeowners building skills. A mechanical engineer by trade, Cheeseman said he picked up some of his repertoire through his volunteer work with Habitat.

As he gestured toward some teen-agers as they filled wheelbarrows with shovelfuls of dirt, Cheeseman said, "I can teach any of these kids to hang drywall in 15 minutes."

Cheeseman estimates high school and college youth groups supply 70 percent of the labor for Habitat homes in Cape Girardeau.

Few volunteers can do the most skilled parts of homebuilding, however.

"I can't teach a kid to do heating in an afternoon," Cheeseman said.

Instead contractors do the work, often at a discount. What they charge becomes part of what the homeowner pays for the home.

McGill's home will be the fourth new home Habitat has built in Cape Girardeau to provide what Cheeseman calls "decent, simple homes" for families that otherwise could not afford to own their own homes.

That means no garage, only a concrete slab in a place where the homeowner might build a garage later.

"We build two-, three- and four-bedroom houses, all dictated by the size of the families," Cheeseman said.

McGill's house has three bedrooms so her two daughters will have to double up.

"Rent is getting outrageous," McGill said. "Especially when you have children and you want a certain amount of bedrooms."

She currently rents her home on Good Hope on the city's south side and says she doesn't feel safe in the neighborhood.

"You spend so much money renting, and don't have anything to show for it," McGill said.

Moving to Rand Street means moving back to the neighborhood she grew up in, and moving down the street from her mother.

"When I grew up, the neighborhood didn't seem all that great, but now that Cape has grown, it doesn't seem so bad," McGill said. "It was beautiful this winter. The snow was back there in the woods on the hiil.

Tall hardwood trees practically surround her house and dot the hill behind it. Although Rand Street is not paved in front, Cape Girardeau's capital improvements plan calls for paving all the city's gravel streets.

Among the volunteers helping McGill is Bertha King. King, a claims processor for Blue Cross Blue Shield, is next on Habitat's list for building a home.

King, McGill and everyone else Habitat has helped buy a home works for a living, but still need help buying their own home.

Every Habitat chapter sets its own standards for determining who to help, said Sarah Egan, a spokeswoman for the organization's national office in Georgia. All share a goal to provide "safe, decent housing for people who could not afford it through traditional means," she said. In addition, all families selected must "show a willingness to partner," Egan said.

In Cape Girardeau, Habitat has put five homeowners in homes at a rate of less than one a year. Cheeseman said the ministry hopes to accelerate the process by holding a "blitz build" June 7 to June 21 with volunteers working on at least one home six days a week. Habitat here usually works only on Saturdays.

The group is not looking for new applicants these days because several families are currently on a waiting list for homes, said Dale Humphries, who chairs the local selection committee.

Applicants must go through a rigorous selection process, Humphries said. Their incomes have to be close to the poverty level that the Missouri Division of Family Services uses to determine eligiblity for food stamps, Humphries said. But they also have to show that they can make $250 month house payments, plus save up for a small downpayment.

In addition, every family must put in 350 hours of work -- sweat equity -- into Habitat. McGill probably won't be able to reach the 350 hours before her home is finished so she'll probably work on King's.

"I plan to stay involved with Habitat even after my hours are through," McGill said.