Homes For The Holidays Families Own Houses Thanks To Habitat For Humanity

Home for Christmas never sounded as sweet as it does this year for Larry and Lillian Booth and Nick and Alanna Sell.

It says no more combined living room and bedrooms. It says refrigerators in the kitchen instead of the living room. It says both families finally have space for a dining table.

“It’s going to be fun to go to bed and walk into my bedroom,” Alanna says.

The Sells and the Booths moved this week into a duplex so new that the smell of paint and carpet glue still tickles their noses.

“Someone said, ‘I hope Santa still finds you,”’ Lillian says, as friends trim a last closet door for hanging. “Oh, I think he already has.”

Habitat for Humanity is Santa for these two families this year. The nonprofit program, championed by former President Jimmy Carter, helps working, low-income families build and buy modest new homes.

It depends on donations and volunteer labor, including hundreds of hours of “sweat equity” from the buying families. Mortgages are interest-free.

More than 100 volunteers hammered, sawed, poured cement, raised roof trusses, fit cabinets and installed pipes and wiring for the Booths and the Sells. They started last April.

Larry, Lillian, Nick and Alanna each worked more than 250 hours on the slate gray duplex in Post Falls. They labored with retired construction workers and people fulfilling their court-ordered community service, as well as church groups and individuals who just wanted to contribute.

“We’ve met a lot of really neat people doing this, people we hope will stay friends,” Larry says.

Warren and Deb Fisher will be there as long as the Booths need them. Deb’s uncle sat on Habitat’s first international board of directors. The retired couple helped build homes in Mexico last year and sponsored the Booths this year.

As sponsors, the Fishers are liaisons between the Booths and Habitat. They’ll also guide them through their first year as homeowners.

“When you think about what’s wrong with America, it’s the idea that some people have lots and other people have less than they need,” Deb says. “Warren and I have lots. If we’re going to enjoy it, we want it to be fair.”

Larry and Lillian are modest about what they deserve in life. Larry’s 37 and works in maintenance for the Post Falls School District. Lillian is 44 and makes medical cushions for cars.

Since they married five years ago, they’ve lived with their three boys in a 1954 single-wide trailer once gutted by fire. They remodeled but had no room in their kitchen for the refrigerator or dining table.

They ate on the coffee table. If everyone was home at mealtime, someone had to stand. A friend told them about Habitat last spring.

“I didn’t think we had a chance,” Lillian says. “As little as we have, I know there are people worse off.”

The Booths are exactly the type of family Habitat wants.

“People who qualify fit in a narrow band. They have to need housing because they’re in poor housing, but they have to have jobs to pay the mortgage,” Deb says.

The Sells lived in one room that tested their new marriage. For two years, they crawled over each other in their cramped quarters. The second year, they added a baby girl to the squeeze.

“I think it’s brought us a lot closer,” Nick says. He’s 23 and works on the paint line at Harpers Inc. Alanna is 20 and a housewife.

In the new duplex, their daughter will play on soft, blue carpet and shiny, white linoleum.

There are so many kitchen cupboards that Alanna and Nick are sure they can’t fill them. With gas heat, they won’t have to worry about the woodstove burning their baby.

But the best feature, at least for this time of year, is the space the duplex offers for a Christmas tree.

“This is a wonderful program, not a handout,” Deb says as she helps the two families settle into their new homes. “These people have earned these houses.”

Habitat for Humanity is building a home in Athol and will start one soon in Rathdrum. To volunteer, call 667-3116.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color photos