Two local charities will be organizing homebuilders next week to finish the last two homes of a new subdivision in record time.
The project, called the Home Builders Blitz, will involve building two houses in the timeframe of five days. Homebuilder companies from across the Bryan-College Station area will work together, organized by Habitat For Humanity, to create these homes for two local families in need.
Maggie Dunham, marketing coordinator for Habitat for Humanity BCS, said this type of project was made possible by their partnership with local organization Greater Brazos Valley Builders’ Association.
“We, Habitat for Humanity BCS, are partnering with the Greater Brazos Valley Builders’ Association to do this,” Dunham said. “They’re bringing together 10 homebuilder companies from the area to complete the project.”
The completion of these two homes will finish off the subdivision that Habitat for Humanity began years ago, according to director of development Carl Orozco.
“In 2006 we kicked of a new subdivision called Angel’s Gate, located in West Bryan,” Orozco said. “At that initial opening we organized the building of 10 homes in 2 weeks. Now the subdivision is made up of 106 Habitat for Humanity homes, it’s the largest subdivision that we have.”
This latest attempt to rapidly finish multiple houses will finish off that subdivision in a similar way in which it was started, Orozco said.
“So now, 10 years after starting it, we’re going to build two houses in one week to finish Angel’s Gate,” Orozco said. “The walls of the two houses will be raised at 8 a.m. on Oct. 24, and the finished houses will be dedicated in a ceremony on Friday Oct. 28, at 4 p.m.”
Quick projects do not create any special safety concerns, Orozco said.
“These are homebuilders, this is what they do for a living,” Orozco said. “We’ve done projects like this before without any issues, so I have no concerns about safety or about the quality of the homes being built. There are always some safety concerns in any construction job, but that is always the case regardless of the speed at which it is done.”
Ashley Burk, development coordinator for Habitat for Humanity, said they have complete confidence in the families that these two homes will be given to.
“We have two families these houses are being built for. These are the Juarez-Rodriguez family and the Pedraza family,” said Burk. “All of our partner families have to go through an application process; they have to complete 500 hours of flood equity, basically working on other houses or working in our store. They also take homeownership classes so we can set them up for success and give them the tools to be responsible homeowners. They pay a no-interest mortgage, so it’s much more affordable.”
Any person interested in helping Habitat for Humanity in this project or others can contribute to the cause by donating on habitatBCS.org.
