Habitat agency helps 25-year-old woman get a home

Anita Miller sat in the sunshine and looked across the street at the group of hungry college students and builders eating barbecue in the shade.

Lunch would be nice, she said, but she was content to sit on her steps.

Because they are her steps.

She is just about ready to move into her new home on North Cool Avenue - a house that was built entirely by volunteer labor and with help from New Bern's Habitat for Humanity.

The completion of the house was celebrated Friday afternoon with a picnic that honored Miller and a group of about 20 college students from La Salle University in Philadelphia.

The students have spent the last week in New Bern helping Miller put the finishing touches on her house.

"This is just a dream come true for me," she said. "Everybody says stuff like that, but it really is. I stayed in Trent Court for a lot of my life and I just didn't think that I'd be getting my own home."

Miller is 25 years old. She's single and she doesn't have any children. She works in production at Carolina Technical Plastics. She's also taking classes at Craven Community College. She wants to become a nurse.

"I'm trying to make my life better," she said. "Doing this has been hard, but it's also been fun. I know those students didn't have to come all the way from Pennsylvania to help me. It's hard enough for me to get here, between my work schedule."

Michael Purvis is one of the volunteer builders.

Last week, the 22-year-old Purvis graduated from La Salle with a degree in computer science. He wanted to spend his first week out in the real word helping someone he barely knew.

"I have the time and I have the energy," he said. "And I wanted to get out of the Philadelphia bubble. It's important to look around and know there are other people, other cultures that exist. It's been so refreshing to be here because people are actually nice."

Habitat for Humanity is a Christian housing ministry that provides each qualified applicant a house with an interest-free, 25-year mortgage.

The North Carolina Housing Finance Agency uses its self-help loan pool to assist groups such as Habitat for Humanity in building houses. The agency provides a mortgage up to $20,000 that is combined with Habitat's funding, giving the borrower an interest-free mortgage.

Along with meeting eligibility requirements that include income requirements, homeowners must give 200 hours of labor or "sweat equity" toward building their houses.

But for at least a little while Friday, everyone was content to take a break.

The celebration was sponsored by the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency and among the guests was state Rep. Alice Graham Underhill.

"To have this many people interested in helping me is just almost overwhelming," Miller said. "I try to live by the thought that ‘can't' is not a word. If I can do this, anybody can."