WABASH VALLEY HFH
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Mission Statement
Wabash Valley Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, community-based nondiscriminatory organization seeking to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the Wabash Valley and the world while making decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.
About This Cause
Habitat strives for a world where everyone has a decent place to live. The Wabash Valley Habitat for Humanity (WVHH) furthers its vision in two main ways. First, WVHH builds new modest, three-bedroom, two-bath homes which it sells to income-qualified buyers with household incomes from 30-60% of the area median income. WVHH sells its homes at zero percent interest, which allows families to become homeowners paying an average of $550 per monthly in combined principal, homeowners insurance and property tax. This is less than half the average price of renting a comparable home in Terre Haute. WVHH ensures buyers do not enter mortgages that obligate more than 30% of their monthly income and our homebuyers never pay PMI because WVHH serves as the lender throughout the life of the mortgage. Although each mortgage only produces approximately $250/month in income (principal payments) to WVHH, together our 29 mortgages generate approximately $4500 per month in income, which is used to build additional homes. WVHH helps its homebuyers secure down payment and closing cost assistance grants through HUD and other government and private foundations whenever possible. Every new home WVHH sells generates additional funds that help build the next Habitat home. The Second main way WVHH furthers its mission is by making necessary home repairs for qualified low income homeowners in our neighborhood. Repairs range from adding hand rails for senior homeowners and replacing broken windows or downspouts to adding porch supports and fixing broken siding and minor roof damage. WVHH also provides financial literacy and homeowner education classes in conjunction with Purdue University Extension free of charge to all WVHH homeowners. Over its 33-year history, WVHH has built 75 homes, returning 75 vacant City-owned lots to the tax rolls, and has performed needed home repairs on hundreds of additional homes. WVHH homeowners currently generate over $87K in property taxes every year, which results in safer neighborhoods by funding police and fire services, schools and hospitals. Every home WVHH builds increases that aggregate property tax contribution by nearly $2500 each year. According to HUD: “Homeownership provides families with the single largest investment of their lifetimes, [and] strengthens communities, fosters civic pride and provides children with a stable environment.” WVHH’s history supports this thesis. Over 90% of all WVHH families still live in their Habitat homes today, and over 60% have paid off their mortgages and own their homes outright. Tom and Bonnie Born, WVHH’s first homeowners (1989), still live in their Habitat home today. In their WVHH home, the Borns adopted and raised two special needs children and fostered more than 40 others, placed by the Department of Child Services. In their eightieth decade, the Borns remain active in the community, shop in the WVHH ReStore and volunteer regularly. A more recent WVHH family has children in middle and high school and a daughter who is a sophomore locally at Indiana State University (ISU). This fall, she helped re-start the ISU Habitat for Humanity Club. She is studying pre-Med. WVHH is on track to place two additional families into homeownership in the next six months, bringing them stability and a path into the middle class, increasing the aggregate mortgage revenue that funds additional Habitat homes, and increasing the tax rolls that directly fund our schools, hospitals, and fire and police departments. Our work is much greater than building and repairing houses. With the help of civic-minded businesses like Republic and hundreds of volunteers and homeowners, WVHH builds community and revitalizes neighborhoods. WVHH serves the entire city of Terre Haute, Indiana (2022 Census population 57,909). According to the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, Terre Haute and Vigo County have a child poverty rate of 28% – the highest in the State. WVHH’s neighborhood is in a Qualified Census Tract, with more than 50% of its household incomes below 60% of the area median, and has been identified by the Indiana Housing and Development Authority (IHDA) as an area of “chronic economic distress.”