The "Heart and Hand" Housing Ministry aims at providing safe, comfortable and affordable housing for Sand Mountain area families who would otherwise never know the joy of home ownership. Families who are selected cannot show the required "repayment capabilities, etc..." needed to qualify for low-interst loan programs.

Priority is given to families with children. The "rent-to-own" interest free program enables families to achieve increased levels of stability as they move forward towards home ownership. Families and children have a "place of their own." Children have displayed nothing less than "miraculous" behavioral changes and academic improvement by having a stable home environment that is more conducive to study, etc... Children surveyed in 1999 indicated that their new homes had made them "feel not ashamed for their friends to know where they lived." At the time a family moves into their new home the parish works with the United Methodist Church nearest their new residence to host a "house warming." Efforts are made to encourage families to be involved in the communities where they live.

Over the past twenty plus years the program has constructed 45 houses with almost 100 children living with their families in these homes.

Information about the families when they moved into Heart & Hand Houses:
13 % of the families are slightly above poverty level incomes (working poor)
87 % were below poverty level incomes
70 % were below 80% of poverty levels income
36 % were below 50% of poverty level income

Families pay between $35-$100 monthly (less than the cost of one night's lodging in an economy hotel!) on "rent-to-own" agreements.  Average "cost" of a home as of 2007 was $28,000.


Heart and Hand Home Project Information

Partnership Commitments of Sponsor Churches
Type of Construction
Solar Heating
Storm Safe Room
Project Coordinator