SIOUX CENTER—A Promise Community Health Center donation is helping Siouxland Habitat for Humanity launch a new program for low-income Sioux County residents.
The health center in Sioux Center purchased a home on First Avenue Northwest, north of its existing parking lot, in January and it was moved in July as a donation to Siouxland Habitat for Humanity’s Sioux County branch.
“One of the previous homeowner’s priorities was for the existing house’s structure to be reused, benefiting a family within the local community,” said Promise CEO Emily Tuschen. “After exploring different options, it became evident that Habitat for Humanity was the perfect fit.”
Tuschen said the main priority at Promise is to serve and advocate for patients that might be in a vulnerable position; whether that is due to finances, language barriers, food insecurities, transportation, housing or something else.
Throughout the past two years Promise staff have been working on establishing a social work program and how Promise could address these needs.
“A safe home is a blessing that not everyone in Sioux County has,” Tuschen said. “Siouxland Habitat for Humanity is serving and working toward a common goal — providing shelter and safety to a low income family. After meeting with Kurt [Franje, Habitat’s Sioux County director] and hearing his perspective on how the house could be utilized, I knew this was the direction we should go and hoped that it would be a blessing.”
Tuschen said the health center is honored to have played a part in aiding the development of the new home repair program.
“It is opportunities like this that community partners can be a blessing to each other,” she said. “Understanding the mission and values of organizations we work beside is key to being both resourceful and collaborative.”
Initial thoughts for the home were that it could be moved and used as a home for a Habitat family. However, when Tuschen contacted Franje late last fall, the organization had just completed accepting applications for its next home construction projects.
“We have moved houses before so that is something we have experience with but it came down to timing,” Franje said.
Franje said the organization tries working in advance to select families, opening its home application process in October and March so the organization already had the families selected for its 2023 projects.
“But like Promise and the previous homeowner, we didn’t want to see the house torn down,” Franje said. “As we walked through it and saw the main level was in very sound condition, we started brainstorming thinking maybe we could use this home in a different way. We had had this idea to start a new program we saw a need for, but it needed funding.”
Habitat staff and Promise discussed the idea of moving the home to a new location and selling it as a fixer-upper project for a third party and using the proceeds from the home’s sale to start Habitat’s home repair program.
Franje reached out to the city of Alton, knowing there were lots available in that community and feeling the home would be a good fit.
“An area of old trailer homes had been cleaned up and the community was looking to establish more permanent housing there,” Franje said, noting Alton city officials approved the home move after seeing pictures of the good condition of the home to be moved.
The move happened in July and closing on the sale happened just two weeks ago.
“We sold it to someone else who will finish it off,” Franje said.
With funds now in place, Habitat staff are finalizing details for its home repairs program with the intention to have applications open in October and March — the same time as its applications for its new home construction program.
“The basis of the new program is that it will be for low income families who currently own their own home and financially don’t have the means to maintain it or get a small construction loan to make the exterior repairs needed or are physically not able to make the repairs,” Franje said. “We want to come alongside them and help keep them in their home by keeping that home safe and decent for them.”
Potential repairs eligible for the program include re-roofing, painting existing siding, putting up new siding and landscape changes or sidewalk disrepair if such features cause an accessibility issue into a home.
Franje is excited to see this program get started.
“We started thinking last summer about how we can serve more people in a different way,” Franje said about Habitat staff. “We’ve been getting good at building one, two homes a year in Sioux County, which is great at providing a family who currently hasn’t had a safe place to live with a home of their own and changing their life in a substantial way for a long period of time. But we also began thinking about how we could connect with more communities, serve more families and incorporate volunteers in a different way and felt a home repairs program could fulfill all of those goals as well as fill a need we see in the county.”
Any Sioux County resident, rural or living within a Sioux County community, who meets the program’s low income guidelines, is eligible to apply.
“We see this program as a huge asset to the county to help maintain existing housing stock,” Franje said. “It’s also a more flexible program for us in that we won’t be identifying which community we’ll be doing this in, we will let the applications come in and have the flexibility to schedule projects according to the need be it a weekend project or a weeklong project and it allows us to schedule those projects with volunteer availability as well.”
While Siouxland Habitat for Humanity based in Sioux City covers Plymouth, Sioux, Woodbury Counties in Iowa, Union County in South Dakota and Dakota County in Nebraska, the home repair program will only be available in Sioux County.
“As it’s a new program, we want to start it in a smaller location and really see the need for it in this county so we’re going to start here and, hopefully over time, continue to develop it,” Franje said.
The space the home previously occupied in Sioux Center will be made into additional patient parking for Promise, though no timeline is set for that work.
“As the center continues to grow and meet the needs of the community, the additional parking spaces will be a welcome convenience for patients and their families,” Tuschen said.
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Siouxland Habitat for Humanity is launching a new home repairs program Sioux County residents this fall.
“The basis of the new program is that it will be for low income families who currently own their own home and financially don’t have the means to maintain it or get a small construction loan to make the exterior repairs needed or are physically not able to make the repairs,” said Kurt Franje, Siouxland Habitat for Humanity’s Sioux County director. “We want to come alongside them and help keep them in their home by keeping that home safe and decent for them.”
Potential repairs eligible for the program include re-roofing, painting existing siding, putting up new siding and landscape changes or sidewalk disrepair if such features cause an accessibility issue into a home.
Potential repairs eligible for the program include re-roofing, painting existing siding, putting up new siding and landscape changes or sidewalk disrepair if such features cause an accessibility issue into a home.
Any Sioux County resident, rural and living within a Sioux County community, who meet the program’s low income guidelines, are eligible to apply.
To learn more about the income guidelines and the program, call Franje at 641-780-9054 or e-mail him at [email protected].