After helping several others build their new homes around town since 2012, one Athens resident finally has her own.
Kim Arnold’s home was the last of seven Habitat for Humanity abodes constructed on Carpenter’s Circle in east Athens.
“I first started volunteering with Habitat because I just wanted to do something productive with my time,” Arnold said. “Then one of my friends said, because she knew my situation, she said I should apply to get a home.”
As a single mother, Arnold raised two children, one age 18 and another age 24.
“I’ve always been a single mother and so I’ve had to raise two children with me making minimum wage,” she said. “So we always lived in dumps.”
After having her first child at 21, Arnold worked to make enough money to raise her children, but accumulated debt.
“I worked really hard to get out of debt,” Arnold said. “I did a lot of research and I did it in six months.”
After getting out of debt, it was time to find a nice place to live, so she applied to have Habitat for Humanity build her a home.
Arnold’s daughter is away at college and her son has moved out, so even though she’s alone at home, she said it’s now her happy place.
Another homeowner on Carpenter’s Circle, Shamika Crew, said her home was finished more than a year ago.
“This neighborhood is awesome. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful,” Crew said. “I think I can speak for the whole Carpenter’s Circle community when I say thank you for making our dreams come true.”
The homes are arranged in a semicircle around a green area that includes tables, a stepping stone trail and a stone bench engraved in memory of one of the Habitat directors who worked on the homes.
Beau Harvey, whose name is carved into the bench, died in 2011 after working as the construction manager on the first two homes on the circle.
“He was always the first one out here,” said John Albright, a volunteer who worked on the homes. “Beau was just different. He just wanted to help all the time.”
Habitat workers have been laboring off and on to complete the homes on Carpenter’s Circle since 2009. Now that the homes are finished, Habitat sells them to the owners for $67,000 each without interest, which is about what it cost to build them, said state Rep. Spencer Frye, the executive director for Athens Area Habitat.
• View more photos from the neighborhood dedication in our slideshow.
“If we can control portions of these neighborhoods, we can improve the whole area,” Frye said at a ceremony for the neighborhood Tuesday evening.
Commissioner Harry Sims, who said he lives nearby, told the crowd at the event that he is proud of residents for taking part in building their own homes.
“Home ownership is a very valuable thing. The people living in these homes, they had to get out there and sweat, too,” Sims said. “So you have far more appreciation for it because it’s a part of you.”
Follow reporter Hilary Butschek on Twitter @hilarylbutschek or at https://www.facebook.com/hbutschek.
