Partner Families

How does a family become a partner family with Habitat? 

How are families selected to become Habitat home owners? 

The volunteer Family Selection/Family Support Committee oversees this process.  A family hears about Habitat through advertising, publicity or word-of-mouth. By contacting the Executive Director or calling the Habitat Office at 410.479.9200, they can obtain details about the selection criteria and qualification process. If they decide that they would fit Habitat guideline requirements and are interested, their name will be placed on a waiting list.

When a new project plan is ready, we will hold an application meeting, and all people on the waiting list will be invited to the meeting and fill out an application. Committee members will provide one-on-one assistance in the application process. We will tell the applicants ahead of time which documents to bring to the meeting as proof of income, expenses, savings, etc. The application form asks for information about their current housing, their employment status, family situation and some financial history.  If they submit an application they then will be visited by the committee and that visit becomes an opportunity for further information sharing about the family and about the organization.  The family's responsibility is to be as open and honest as possible about their own situation.

The committee's responsibility is to act in as timely a fashion as possible, being respectful of the family's needs, but also to be open and honest about the limitations of the organization and not build up false hopes.

The purpose of this information gathering is simply to assess the applicant's ability to meet our three basic requirements: a need for decent housing, the ability to pay for it, and willingness to partner with Habitat.  In other words, the family that is selected for a Habitat house will be a family whose situation requires a move into more adequate housing, a family whose income is too low to qualify for conventional home loans but is reliable enough to be able to sustain a low cost, interest free mortgage from Habitat, and a family that is enthusiastic about being a partner in the actual building of this house. 

Habitat for Humanity is dedicated to the idea that all people should have decent housing.  Not everyone who lives in Caroline County does.  It is a very strong and natural desire of most people to be home owners, but many are kept from ever realizing this because of low income in a world of high prices.

Habitat can fill a need.  With the help of volunteer labor and donated materials, Habitat can build low cost houses and sell them at cost with no-interest loans to families who can pay for them. Those families become volunteers, then, in this volunteer organization, putting "sweat equity" into their future home by helping to build others' homes, participating in the other work and projects of the organization and then, finally, helping to build the house that will become theirs.  This is what is meant by "partnering".

The family selection process has to be fair, objective and nondiscriminatory.  But it is by no means cut and dry.  A family takes a leap of faith when it applies for a Habitat home.   The organization, likewise, draws on faith in its own ability to select partner families and build houses together.

Are we a faith based institution? You bet we are!