New home, new blessings

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Maika Hammaker bows her head in prayer as Bishop Mulvey blesses the land where her new house will be built.

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Nine-year-old Maika Hammaker had just one question for her mother when they learned in March they had been accepted in the Habitat for Humanity Corpus Christi program.
“She asked when we could move in,” Esmi Hammaker said with a smile.

The two had come to the building site for their new Habitat home on Soledad Street on a hot Aug. 17 for a special reason. The Hammakers, along with their associate pastor, Sergio Santoyo of the Corpus Christi Worship Centre, and some Habitat for Humanity officials, had come to place a Bible underneath the threshold of what would be the front door of the new home before the foundation would be poured.

Bishop Michael Mulvey blessed the site at a groundbreaking ceremony held on Aug. 5. The home is being built and named in honor of Pope Francis. And placing a Bible underneath the front door before a foundation is poured is a Habitat for Humanity tradition for every home, which is built through their program.

“I had to explain to her that it would be a while before we could move,” said Esmi Hammaker, who works as a hairstylist and has been living in an apartment with her daughter.

Esmi Hammaker and her daughter Maika look forward to moving into their new home–the Pope Francis Home–made possible by an anonymous donor and their own “sweat” equity. Dayna Mazzei Worchel for South Texas Catholic

The apartment they call home is in bad condition with numerous problems, including the plumbing. But Esmi Hammaker expects to celebrate come February. She turns 50, and her two-bedroom; one-bath home will be completed then. She hopes to be moved in by then, if not before.

The Pope Francis home on Soledad Street, which the Hammakers will call home, is the 50th house to be built through the Habitat for Humanity program in Corpus Christi since 1990. Eleven mortgages have since been retired, said Board President Cheryl Andrews.

“The Nueces County Community Action Agency gave us three lots and we replatted them into two,” Andrews said of the property on Soledad Street.

The lot next door to the Pope Francis home will hold another Habitat house to be built with volunteers from the Texas Catholic Daughters of the Americas organization.

Catholic Daughters of the Americas is continuing a 10-year tradition of partnering with Habitat for Humanity by providing volunteers for building homes. In August, a family was selected and in September, a blessing was held and ground was broken at the site.

“This will be the seventh home Catholic Daughters has built since 2004,” said Eve Trevino, state regent for the Texas State Court of the Catholic Daughters of the Americas.

The national Catholic Daughters office has given the Texas State Court a $25,000 grant and the Texas State Court must raise another $25,000 to sponsor the home, Trevino said.
“A part of the State Regent’s goal is to build a Habitat home for a deserving family,” she said.

Catholic Daughters of the Americas help National Regent Shirley Seyfried (fourth from left) raise the first wall of new Habitat for Humanity house. Mellie Smithwick for South Texas Catholic

An anonymous donor from outside Texas gave $50,000 to Habitat for Humanity to build in the name of Pope Francis in Corpus Christi, representatives said. He also challenged the organization to raise an additional $30,000, which they did through a donation from the John G. and Marie Stella Kenedy Foundation.

The anonymous donor had two stipulations: the home had to be built in honor of Pope Francis, and it must be finished by December, the Habitat for Humanity officials said.

The Kenedy Foundation gift had special meaning for Carolyn Smith, the executive director of the Habitat for Humanity organization of Corpus Christi until earlier this summer. She had held that position for 10 years until the death of her husband, O.K. Smith, from cancer on June 1. She began with the nonprofit organization as a volunteer in 2003 on a Catholic Daughters home build.

“I was very touched . . . he was one of the best, most loved people and he was a good man,” Carolyn Smith said of her husband, who was in the real estate business and who served as the Habitat for Humanity real estate advisor.

O.K. Smith also served as chairman for the ReStore Committee. ReStore is a retail outlet which sells donated building materials and gently used household items, which helps fund the building of more Habitat for Humanity homes.

Hammaker, who called the home “an answer to our prayers,” wants the public to know she is not receiving the home for free.

“There is a lot of work I must do,” she said.

One part of the requirement for receiving the home is performing 300 to 500 hours of “sweat equity,” Carolyn Smith said.

At least 200 hours must go into actual home construction at the site, and the prospective homeowner must be physically active on the site. A single parent may receive up to 75 hours of outside help toward the sweat equity, Carolyn Smith said.

Hammaker said she has worked at other home sites doing painting and caulking.

Homeowners must also be able to pay an interest-free mortgage of about $300 to $400 per month. They must also have need, and be living in an overcrowded or unsafe situation, Carolyn Smith said.

“This is not a giveaway program. People fill out an application and are given a punch list. We are dead serious,” she said.

Habitat for Humanity receives no federal or United Way funding. Their sole source of support comes through sponsors and donors.

Maika Hammaker is looking forward to two things about moving in to her new home.
“I’ll have a room of my own and yard for my dog,” she said with a giggle.