The landscape of middle Georgia is a collage of remnants.
The white-flecked stubble of last year’s cotton crop
stretches for miles across flat fields distinguished by an
occasional pillared, historic mansion. The fields are dotted
with sagging sharecropper shacks, their porch roofs collapsing,
doors and windows gaping.
The economy here
is still agricultural. It has gone from cotton to peanuts
and now to pines destined for chip mills. The years of drought
and depressed pulpwood prices have strained an already difficult
situation. As in the past, large landowners have the resources
to weather the worst.
Dodge County, about
a three-hour drive southeast of Atlanta, has some of the largest
landowners in the region. It also has many people who don’t
own any land, or a home. Shirlene King, until recently, was
one of the latter group.
Shirlene, who has
lived in Eastman—the county seat—all her life, moved
into a new home with her 16-year-old son Anthony in October
of last year—a home that she owns.
“I kept praying,
asking the Lord for something better,” she says, polishing
the edges of her kitchen sink to a shine. “When you live
in lots of places the rent goes up when the wages go up. I’ve
lived in a house without a bathroom. I kept looking, asking,
inquiring. The Lord just worked. When you call, wait on the
Lord and be thankful, he’ll help you.”
Sometimes help takes
the shape of a Glenmary brother.
Brother Tom Sheehy has been in Eastman for eight years.
He first served St. Mark Church, then a Glenmary mission,
and assisted in the completion of the parish hall.
His skills and availability
led him to respond to the critical local need for affordable
housing. He eventually founded the Dodge County Habitat for
Humanity where he now serves as executive director. To date
they are responsible for five new homes in Eastman, including
Shirlene’s. Brother Tom hopes three more houses will
be completed this year, to bring the total of finished homes
to eight.
Starting a Habitat
affiliate in Eastman was a daunting task early on. Brother
Tom recalls digesting the five-volume set of Habitat policies
and procedures. “It’s very bureaucratic,” he
said, “but in hindsight you see the value in the process.
It’s an extremely logical sequence of events, but it
takes time.” The affiliation process was completed in
the spring of 1997 and construction began immediately on the
first house.
Building a Habitat
home involves a lot more than construction work: A selection
process is used to choose the future residents. Mentors are
assigned and hundreds of hours of “sweat equity”
work are required of the future owner, who must also qualify
for a mortgage.
“Habitat is
also about trying to build people up, “ Brother Tom says.
“It’s about getting people the resources they need.”
The resident of the first house the local group finished now
has a better job and is earning a college degree, he reports.
Houses are located
in clusters so the Habitat residents can support and encourage
each other as well as “build up” the surrounding
neighborhood. There are three such clusters in Eastman, with
houses in two areas and foundations poured in the third.
Another kind of “building” associated with
Brother Tom’s ministry is encouraging local residents
to assume leadership roles on the board of the local Habitat
affiliate. Some residents are convinced it is “not their
place” to be an officer on the executive committee, Brother
Tom says. “It challenges people to see blacks and whites
working together in a mini-microcosm.”
The group receives
support from most major local businesses and/or their national
headquarters as well as from a variety of local churches,
large and small, wealthy and modest. In February, the parishioners
of St. Mark presented Brother Tom with a check for $1,200
from their annual Habitat fund drive.
Support also comes
from the college groups across the country who bring a monetary
donation when they come to donate their time and labor. Five
such groups are scheduled to work on houses this year. Two
of the groups—from St. Anselm College in New Hampshire
and Ursuline Academy in Illinois—were recruited with
the help of Susan Hellmann, the manager of Glenmary’s
Volunteer Office in Cincinnati. She also coordinates volunteers
for Glenmary’s Appalachian Volunteer program at the Glenmary
Farm and helps funnel volunteer groups to other Glenmary mission
areas.
Local people regularly
volunteer for construction work, and they have donated some
of the land for houses. Land has also been donated for new
Habitat offices, which will have a warehouse and a Habitat
ReStore/Home Store on the same site.
The
store, to be staffed by local people, will feature clothing
and household goods as well as building materials. Brother
Tom hopes it will be an information center and a steady source
of income for local Habitat projects. Donations are needed
for this project as well. It is further hoped a full-time
VISTA volunteer can be secured to organize the store and help
with financial development.
Shirlene
King isn’t too concerned with all these future plans.
She’s thankful for everything that led to the undreamed
reality of having her own home—including her upbringing
and learning to respect herself.
“I love the
whole house,” she says, while giving a tour. “I
can’t believe how the Lord has blessed me. People gave
me things to make it nice. My family (four children and three
grandchildren) knows I want this house kept good.” Her
favorite feature is the washer and dryer.
Practicality is something she treasures in people as well.
“They picked
the right man for the job,” she says of her “sweat
equity” hours with Brother Tom. “I love how he handles
telling people what to do. He lets you know what’s expected
and that he wants it done right. He’s out there working
and showing you how it goes. If you want a home, you work
for it. Nothing comes easy.”
Flowers are one
of the things that do not “come easy” for her, but
she is determined to tackle the landscaping opportunity that
her home offers. She can certainly get some tips from Josie
Odum.
Josie Odum lives with her teenage daughter, Mary Jo,
in the second house built in the original Habitat cluster.
Her landscaping features shrubs and flowers. Fresh pine straw
is the first phase of this year’s planting project.
“It didn’t
seem possible to have my own house,” Josie says, sitting
near a carefully-arranged display of family portraits and
mementos. “The one I was staying in, well, I wonder how
I stayed all those winters with the rain coming in all over
the kitchen and the cold.”
“I wasn’t
expecting it, but I got qualified (for the Habitat home),”
she says. “I could have jumped through the roof right
then. I knew I had to make the hours, so I helped work on
the first house. I cleaned lots, cut and hauled brush and
trash, painted, helped put siding on. It was fun working like
that.”
It was even more
fun moving into her own home in March 1999. The weather was
beautiful on dedication day, she recalls. A local church choir
sang for the ceremony.
“I just love
the house,” she says quietly. “I love working in
the yard. I like it pretty.”
These Eastman Habitat houses have a market value of around
$45,000 to $50,000, Brother Tom says. But like Brother Joe
Steen, whose Habitat ministry is based in Mississippi, Brother
Tom knows the monetary value is just the icing on the cake.
His final word:
“We build houses, so we can help build up people.”
Susan Stevenot Sullivan, a freelance writer based in Atlanta, Ga., is
currently serving as interim communications director for the
Glenmary Justice Commission.
