​Cheboygan, MI: Cheboygan County Habitat for Humanity (CCHFH) is inviting the public to come and tour their recently completed Habitat Home Rehab Project in the City of Cheboygan.
 
The open house event will take place at 417 Garfield Avenue from 12 p.m. - 6 p.m. on Thursday, January 26th, 2023.
 
Guests will have the opportunity to view this newly rehabbed aging home that underwent an intense renovation to meet the organization's quality, safety, and energy standards and see before photos of the home. Habitat staff will be present to answer questions, provide information about the organization's housing programs serving Cheboygan County and share information about the organization’s future plans. Refreshments and light snacks will be available.
 
“This final open house is a great opportunity for the community to see the hard work the Habitat team, our Program Partner, volunteers and local contractors have put into this home to help preserve our local housing stock and offer a local family a hand up not a handout for homeownership,” explained Mandy Martin, Executive Director.
 
CCHFH purchased this home in February 2022 and started preparing to remove overgrown vegetation, repair foundation issues and fully remodel this home. “We are so grateful to everyone who has come together to help on this project”, said Martin. “This is our first Homeownership Project in 4 years and we are so excited to have the community stop by to see the hard work we put into this rehab and learn about our exciting future plans.”

Thank you so much to everyone who made this event so successful. We couldn't do the work we do without our long term supporters and this year's event sponsor, Citizens National Bank. The team at CNB do so much good throughout our community and we are so grateful for their continued support. 

We were able to raise over $11,000 so far for this event. We will be having a small online auction to sell the last remaining auction items and raise even more funds for our mission! Keep an eye on our social media channels for that information. 

​10. Support our Cars for Homes Program: You can donate a car, boat, tractor, camper, etc. to this program. The program will then resell or recycle your vehicle, raising funds for Habitat to partner with local families to build stability and security that a safe affordable home allows. Learn more here! Make sure to use your Cheboygan County address so funds come directly to our local Habitat. 

9: Donate goods to the Habitat ReStore: When you donate sellable items to the ReStore, you are providing inventory that is sold and profits raised support our housing programs.  Give us a call to schedule your donation pick up or drop off appointment, 231-597-9463 Ext. 1. Closed Sunday - Tuesday. 

8. Become a business partner with Habitat: Your business can have a jeans day for Habitat, host a giveback fundraiser, sell paper houses, hold a bake sale, or anything else fun to help raise funds and awareness for our housing programs. We love and appreciate ALL of the community support here in Cheboygan. 100% of funds stay right here in our community!

7. Be an ambassador for our mission: Like our different social media channels. Share and comment on posts too! Help connect community members in need with our services. The more you talk about our mission and the great work we are doing, the more support for our mission. 

6. Select Cheboygan County Habitat as your non-profit partner on Amazon Smile: Amazon will donate .5% of your purchase to Habitat. You can even select Habitat as your non-profit Amazon Smiles Partner on your amazon app. All of your purchases would then be supporting our great work. Always remember when shopping Amazon from a web browser to go to Smile.Amazon.com to help your favorite non-profit. Our unique link is: smile.amazon.com/ch/38-3190977

5. We have an Amazon Wishlist where you can pick up an item(s) on our list, purchase them for us and they ship directly to us. This allows you to use your donor dollars in a way that lets you control how your support is used. Save your receipt for your taxes for your donation! Here is our current wish list! Wishlist: https://a.co/fO26N4O

4. You can donate stock to our organization through our partnership with the Citizens National Bank Financial Services Department. If you want to make a stock gift, please send us an email by clicking here and we will send you the information you need to make a stock donation! 

3. Volunteer!  We always need more hands. More hands make light work! You can help on our board, on job sites, in our store, or in the office! Teenagers can gain volunteer hours by helping us too! We will need help landscaping soon! Gardeners, stay tuned! ALL help is appreciated, even if you can only help for two hours, or once a month. We LOVE our volunteers, and count on volunteerism to help keep us able to help our community!

2. We are always needing referrals for contractors for our different projects. If you know a contractor or are one, we need people to bid our jobs. This gives us a budget, which we then commit to, fundraise for, and get things in place to do the work. The contractor is who we then work with to renovate, build, and fix the homes for people in our community to have a safe place to call home. We have a steady stream of jobs, and like to support local contractors, who are then supporting our mission too!

1. Good ole cold hard cash donation. Whether it is $5 or $500, EVERY little bit helps us. We pay contractors to do our builds, we have heat bills for the store, and we do a lot of things that require our funds. Donations are tax deductible and we will be glad to get you a receipt! 

Any of the gifts you provide from this list help provide safe and affordable shelter for many community members facing housing insecurity in our community. We see far too many homes in Cheboygan County that are beyond repair and many more that need a hand up for homeownership and home repair work. Your gift is life changing and your support is greatly appreciated. 

We have been so blessed during July to have some amazing volunteers on site helping us rehab our Garfield Street Home. Volunteers worked on yard clean up, installing Styrofoam board, windows and doors, house wrap and siding! 

A big thank you to all of the regular individual volunteers coming out each week to help. An even bigger thank you to the service clubs and businesses that sent volunteer groups out. We had Cheboygan Kiwanis, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, Exit Reality Premier, Citizens National Bank and Straits Area Federal Credit Union helping on site this month! 

In conjunction with our June 4th, Hard Hats and Hope Brunch Fundraiser, we are raffling off this beautiful shed! Funds raised will support our Homeownership Project, specifically our next home rehab project. Tickets are on sale now for this shed. 

• Tickets - $20 each or 6 for $100
• Available: At the office or ReStore (9385 N Straits Highway- Cheboygan), Staff, Board Members and Committee Members. **Online ticket sales are not available. Credit Card payments accepted in the ReStore and Office. We have Venmo and PayPal options as well. 
• Drawing is June 4th, 2022 at 12:30 - you do not need to be present to win! 
• Local delivery only! 
• At least 200 tickets must be sold or the raffle reverts to a 50/50 cash raffle. 

Questions - please email info@habitatcheboygan.org or call 231-597-4663. 

Today is the big day! We have turned 28. For 28 years we have been working hard to provide safe, decent and affordable homes to those in need of a decent place to live. Over the past 28 years, we have built or rehabbed 24 homes, sold 2 homes on the open market and completed 20 home repair projects! We couldn't have served the families and completed these projects without the continued community support we receive.

What's next for us? We hope to continue serving at least 7 community members through our Home Repair Program. We hope to get our new Ramp Program up and running. This program would help folks in the last chapter of their live coming home to hospice care with a ramp to help get in and out of their home comfortably during the last chapter of their life. Also we will be serving a family through our Homeownership Program with our 2022 home rehab project. 

We hope to increase our capacity to serve through our homeownership program, but we can't do that without continued community support. We self-finance most of our mortgages and need increased financial support to help us grow in our capacity. 

To Our Valued Customers and Donors:

We have been advised that some member(s) of our staff have tested positive for COVID-19. A possible exposure to this person(s) existed on Wednesday, April 21st, 2021 between 10 am and 4 pm. If you have any questions please reach out to DHD4 COVID-19 Hotline at 989-358-7936 or email covid19@dhd4.org.

Due to staffing shortages and our staff’s need to quarantine, we will be closed through at least May 3rd, 2021. We will do our best to update you on our reopening date as we know more. We are confident that our rigorous daily disinfecting schedule reduces the possibility of transmission of the virus. We have remained transparent with you throughout the course of this pandemic and find it important to continue to do so.

As always, we appreciate your patience and understanding as we navigate through this difficult time. The safety of our valued team members, shoppers and donors is our utmost priority!
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Stay safe,
Your Friends at Cheboygan County Habitat for Humanity and Cheboygan Habitat ReStore

Due to our COVID-19 Exposure, we will be pushing back the 50% off sale, bake sale and t-shirt sale. The bucket raffle will still take place. Tickets will be sold Monday, April 26th - Saturday, May 15th online and in person once we reopen our doors. Tickets can be purchased here on Monday: www.habitatcheboygan.org/store
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15 years ago this day (May 15), we first opened the doors to our Cheboygan Habitat ReStore. Help us kick off our 15th year at our Habi-Birthday Bash!

• We will be offering 50% off store wide and other specials (sale not valid on mattress sets, new paint sundries or MaxLite bulbs) .
• We will be having a bucket raffle leading up to our Habi-Birthday Bash with the drawing on 5/15.
• We will be having a bake sale and t-shirt sale to raise funds for our mission.
• And much more!

For the last 26 years, the Cheboygan County Habitat for Humanity has been offering programs to assist the citizens of Cheboygan County in improving or building the place they call home. Cheboygan County Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Mandy Martin said there are several programs the entity uses on a day-to-day basis to help people, including the home ownership program.

“Through our program, Habitat Program Partners achieve the strength, stability, and self-reliance they need to build a better life for themselves and their families,” said Martin. “Cheboygan County Habitat offers low to zero interest mortgage options to those who qualify for housing programs and then qualify for a mortgage.”

To qualify for this, an individual must show a need for housing, be able to afford an affordable mortgage payment and down payment, as well as be willing to partner with Habitat for Humanity during the journey to owning their own home.

If someone is already a homeowner, but needs some help to make their home safer, Habitat has a home repair program. “This program is intended to provide funds for the rehabilitation of owner occupied, single family residential dwellings,” said Martin. “Repairs will focus on improvements that will reduce the long term costs of homeownership such as energy efficiency improvements and removal of health and safety risks.”
There are three different divisions of this program.

• A Brush with Kindness is for any exterior work that needs to be done, such as painting, patching, landscaping, or replacement of materials to maintain the good and sound condition of the home.
• Weatherization helps to improve the energy efficiency, air quality and comfort of the home. This is a process done to an already standing home and has a defined scope of work to be done.
• Critical home repair is used when there is extensive interior or exterior work needing to be done to a structure. This is typically done when there are health, life and safety issues, or violations with building code standards. This can include changing around space in the home, making it handicap accessible, or fixing plumbing, mechanical and electrical system. This does not include painting.

“Our Home Repair program is new, but we did previously have a program called A Brush with Kindness the painting, which is now a part of our new program,” said Martin. “Through this program we were able to serve eight households between 2011 and 2017. We currently have seven approved home repair projects that we are on different phases on and hope to do at least seven more each year.”

There are several qualifications people must meet in order to obtain help through the Habitat for Humanity. This includes everyone in the home being subject to a sex offender registry check, as anyone who is a registered sex offender is immediately disqualified from the program. The applicant must also occupy the home and be the owner of the home on the deed and tax documents.

Habitat for Humanity will disqualify anyone from the program if the home is in the condition in which it should be, or if it could be condemned or if the person plans to sell the home after the repairs are complete. Also, if the repairs on the home exceed $15,000 and can’t be split into two phases, it will be disqualified.
Martin said the applicants must also meet the core tenants of program eligibility, meaning need, willingness to partner with Habitat for Humanity and the ability to pay. These can all be found on the Habitat for Humanity’s website, or by contacting Martin.

Habitat for Humanity was founded on the concept of Partnership Housing. This concept centered on those in need of decent and affordable places to live working side by side with volunteers to build their future homes. Those homes would be built at no profit, and new homeowners’ house payments would be combined with no-interest loans and donated funds to create “The Fund for Humanity,” which would then be used to build more homes.

“Program Partners invest sweat equity hours into their projects and the projects of others in our housing programs,” said Martin. “This helps them feel pride as they build their home, but also as equally important, helps them learn the skills needed to maintain their home.”

Each year, Habitat for Humanity applies for grants, hosts special fundraising events, raises money through its ReStore and gets donations from the community. This is how the programs offered through Habitat for Humanity are funded. “We are 100 percent community funded at this point and are working on applying for some federal grants to help us increase our capacity to serve,” said Martin. “The Cheboygan Habitat ReStore serves as one source of fundraising for our housing program but also provides new and gently used items to the public at a reduced cost. From building materials to home furnishings, there is something for everyone at the ReStore.”
COVID-19 caused the ReStore and other programs available through the Habitat for Humanity to be put on hold. Some of these have since reopened, and Martin and Habitat for Humanity are looking forward to next year, hoping things are back to normal so they can help more people.

Cheboygan County Habitat for Humanity also participates in a funding program through Habitat for Humanity International called “Cars for Homes.” Community members can donate vehicles, including cars, trucks, motorcycles, recreational vehicles, boats, snowmobiles, farm equipment and construction equipment.
Call Habitat for Humanity at 1-877-277-4344 to schedule your donation or visit www.habitat.org/support/donate-your-car.
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More information regarding Habitat for Humanity and its programs can be found at habitatcheboygan.org/

Wells Fargo Foundation has awarded Cheboygan County Habitat for Humanity with a $15,000 grant to support a home repair project in Indian River. The funding is part of an $8.1 million donation to Habitat for Humanity International for capacity building and direct mission support to build, renovate and repair more than 350 affordable homes across the United States.  The grant is provided through Wells Fargo Builds℠ and is part of the Wells Fargo Foundation’s $1 billion philanthropic commitment to create more housing affordability solutions by 2025.
 
“We’ve had a rich history of working with Habitat for Humanity to strengthen our neighborhoods through philanthropy and volunteerism,” said Marybeth Howe, commercial banking executive at Wells Fargo. “Safe and stable housing enables people to build upon the rest of their life and, together, we can shift the narrative to help others understand that housing affordability is both an economic and humanitarian crisis that’s taking a toll on millions of people.”
 
Wells Fargo Builds provides philanthropic financial assistance from the Wells Fargo Foundation to support the construction, renovation, painting or repairing of homes with low-to-moderate income households. In 2019 alone, Wells Fargo employees volunteered more than 1.9 million hours of service to strengthen their communities, including building, repairing, and improving 674 homes across the U.S. with several organizations through Wells Fargo Builds.
 
“COVID-19 stopped us in our tracks and pushed back 3 home repair projects throughout Cheboygan County,” said Mandy Martin, Executive Director for Cheboygan County Habitat for Humanity. “This funding from Wells Fargo is making a huge impact on our ability to serve those needing a safe place to call home.”
 
The grant will support the repair of a home in Indian River for a single grandmother and her granddaughter who need some handicap accessibility modifications to make their home safe once again. By partnering with Cheboygan Habitat, this household will receive a hand up, not a handout for these critical repairs needed on their home.