Habitat For Humanity now redeveloping entire neighborhoods | News

It has taken 30 years for Metro Denver’s Habitat program to get to the point where they are putting 40 families into new homes, but now the organization is making changes in how they continue the work of making home ownership affordable.

“We will still continue to work on getting families into single family homes,” said CEO, Heather Lafferty. “Only now, we will expand our partnership with the Denver Housing Authority, by using 11 town homes we purchased from them, for some of the folks we service.”

About five years ago, DHA constructed town homes in the Globeville neighborhood near E. 51st Ave.and Sherman St.

When the dust settled, DHA had some trouble getting the right tenants into the units, opening the door for Habitat. One family moved into the first of the 11 Habitat homes a few months ago.

On Saturday, four more new homeowners will get their keys.

“It just makes sense for us to use these town homes, which were already built, for some of our clients,” said Lafferty. “We were also lucky to pick up some property just behind the row houses, where we will construct even more new homes.”

In addition, Habitat For Humanity will be working throughout the rest of Globeville to do some painting and general fix-up work on older homes in the neighborhood.

This project will be funded in part by a $200,000 sponsorship from Wells Fargo Bank. This is a new direction for the charity, in that it will work to not just build new homes but work to make the entire neighborhood stronger by sprucing up homes that have been there for years.

Saturday’s event is slated to begin at 11:00 a.m.