SACRAMENTO COUNTY, Calif. — All throughout March — Women’s History Month — Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sacramento is hosting Women Build events, to bring together hundreds of volunteers to work on an 18-home development called Cornerstone.
“At Habitat for Humanity, we often say, ‘It takes a community to build a community,’” said President and CEO Leah Miller. “I can’t think of a more beautiful representation of that than here at Cornerstone, a community literally having come out of the ground and being built by a community of people coming together to make it possible.”
At the start of a day of volunteering Wednesday morning, future Habitat for Humanity homeowner Shavonda Pitts called up her fellow future homeowners.
“I’m very proud of you guys,” she told them. “No matter what it took to get here, you guys have made it.”
All of the families participating in this affordable homeownership program are low-income and currently living in substandard conditions.
“It’s just an unsafe environment,” Pitts said, describing her family’s apartment complex. “There’s a lot of gun violence there over the years.”
Pitts is a single mom of three working full-time, and yet she and all of her fellow future Habitat homeowners are each putting in the required 500 hours of so-called ‘Sweat Equity,’ working right alongside volunteers on Habitat homes.
“We started back in October. By the end of this week, I should have about 486 hours,” Pitts said.
The Cornerstone development also includes more than 100 units of affordable housing across the street from the Habitat homes built by Mutual Housing California. Altogether, more than 400 people will call that community home, Miller said.
Nine of the 18 Habitat homes are already occupied by families. The remaining homes will be finished and move-in ready by the summer, Miller said.
“I’m appreciative of the opportunity and we just can’t wait to get there,” Pitts said. “I might run through the house and say, ‘This is ours!’ Because we did it. And I say ‘we’ because it was a joint effort.”
Pitts shared something her 9-year-old daughter said: "‘Well, when you’re moving forward, you’re not looking back.'"
“I want everyone to know that on your way up, you don’t have to go backwards… Continue to knock down the doors that are designed to keep you out," said Pitts.
