As of March 1st, families can begin to apply for a Habitat for Humanity house. The local organization is actively looking for applicants for several homes.
Siouxland Habitat for Humanity is looking for families who need homes. Usually the organization has more than a few families applying. However, the challenge lately has been finding those families.
Anne Holmes is the executive director of the organization. Holmes says she wants people know exactly what they are looking for in a homeowner.
“So can have owned a home in the past, you just can’t currently own a home. Also, one of our biggest qualifications is you cannot qualify for a conventional loan at a bank. So we are really looking for those people who are struggling to get qualified for a loan, and come to us, as long as you meet the other criteria.”
Holmes says Habitat looks for three basic things when they look for a homeowner and a big one is income.
“it could be a disability payment, it could be a social security payment, we don’t traditionally count things like alimony or child support because they are not always continuous forms of payment that you can count on from month to month in some cases.”
Habitat also requires some sweat equity from a family when building a house and the organization looks at need.
“you need to make between 29,000 and 58,000, and if you are paying more than 30 percent of your income for housing, that’s a need. Anything over 30 percent is burdensome.”
Applications to be a Habitat homeowner will be accepted from March 1 to March 31. Go to Siouxlandhabitat.org for information.
COVID-19 continued to decline across Iowa in the Iowa Department of Public Health's data release on Wednesday, which is expected to be the last full update before the state's dashboard is taken offline and the data is transferred to the health department's main website.
The number of people hospitalized in Iowa with COVID-19 dropped to 617, the fewest since late November 2021. About half of those have COVID-19 as a primary diagnosis, although it's still a complicating factor for those who have it as a secondary diagnosis.
