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Refugees find Home with Habitat

Building a Safe Haven

Kathy is one of our most loyal volunteers, along with her entire family. She is a recent immigrant from West Africa refugee who by grace and will came to Los Angeles with her children to escape her war-torn country. She then arranged for her sisters children to follow. Most recently, her disabled sister was able to make her way out and join the family. Kathy works at the Motion Picture Home for the Aged and cares for seniors as many hours as possible, often working double shifts four or five days a week to make ends meet. Despite their busy schedules, the entire family shows up most weekends to help Habitat build new homes for deserving families.

Asked why, and Kathy will tell you that she has been blessed to be able to find a safe haven for her family in Los Angeles. Recently, when Kathy heard that Habitat was about to select families for its next 17 homes, she was anxious to apply. Knowing that 17 homes were available, Kathy still wanted to spread the word. Habitat received numerous applications from staff of the Motion Picture Home as a result of Kathys efforts to hand out flyers before and after her shifts. She wanted to make sure a home went to the most needy in our community. She was awe struck to hear 355 people applied on just one night.

Kathy has long since completed the 500 hours of Sweat Equity required to qualify for the home she will move into Summer, 2009, but she still volunteers for Habitat with a heart full of hope--hope for herself, her family and Los Angeles the City that gave her family safety and good reason to believe that, together, Habitat for Humanity and our community can build homes for all those in need.