Families’ ‘healing’ begins with building Habitat homes

Hugh McMillan

Special to the Gateway

Melissa Carman used to live an idyllic life with her husband and three children on a rural half-acre home site in Edgewood.

She drove the kids to soccer and was active in the PTA. She coached baseball; her husband coached basketball. The family went snowboarding and waterskiing.

Carman’s husband worked days and went to school at night to get through a sheet metal worker apprenticeship program. The family attended church regularly.

Carman felt blessed.

Then her husband’s methamphetamine addiction began to tear the family apart. Carman and her children struggled through many attempts at rehab and reconciliation.

“I would try and save him from time to time,” she said. “He was a good man with a good heart struggling with this addiction.”

When Carman saw him, it was like old times. They picked up where they left off and laughed about old times.

But when a devastating five-alarm house fire destroyed everything they had and left them homeless, Carman finally moved on, with her kids.

“It broke my heart,” she said. “The kids love him so much to this day, as do I. It has been a long road.”

“Life has its curve balls sometimes, and the turn of events has brought us to you in Gig Harbor and the Key Peninsula,” Carman said.

Needing to turn her life around, Carman applied for the Habitat for Humanity program. She and her children — Nick, 19, Ryan, 17, and Hannah, 15 — spent last weekend working alongside more than 100 volunteers who swarmed over two construction sites in the Carney Lake area on the Key Peninsula.

Members of the Peninsula Lutheran Church, Agnus Dei Lutheran and Fox Island Alliance churches worked on a home for Carman and her three children, while Gig Harbor Rotarians built another house next door for K.C. Carter and his wife, Jennifer Speidel.

Volunteers ranged from 16 years old to retired folks, including doctors and nurses, retired detectives and even one former U.S. Navy Blue Angels pilot.

The two families are putting at least 500 hours of “sweat equity” into working on the homes and on those of neighbors. In return, they will carry a preferred rate mortgage that they must pay as any other homebuyer.

Ron Coen, a longtime Habitat for Humanity advocate and president of the Peninsula Lutheran Church, said the homes should be complete by Aug. 2.

The two new homeowners expect to move in sometime in October.

Habitat for Humanity is dedicated to providing decent, safe and affordable housing for hard-working families who otherwise might not be able to afford a home on their own.

Habitat’s strength lies in volunteers who donate time, skill, money and energy. The Carman and Carter-Speidel homes are the 15th and 16th homes the organization has built in Pierce County.

This Carman home represents a special, “over and above” build that required special funding from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a fraternal organization that has put $125 million into expanding the capacity of Habitat during a four-year period.

Coen said that, without Thrivent, the local Habitat chapter would not have been able to build a home for the Carman family. The Thrivent grant provided 65 percent of the cost; the Habitat chapter provided 25 percent and local Lutheran churches provided the final 10 percent.

In the weeks ahead, Coen said dozens of other volunteers from other Lutheran congregations in the area will provide at least half of the volunteer hours needed to complete the home.

The Carter-Speidel family was accepted into Habitat in 2007.

“We couldn’t wait to build our home and meet all the different volunteers and participate in building other Habitat families’ houses,” K.C. Carter said.

Carter, 25, works as a car lot manager in Purdy, and Jennifer Speidel, 22, is a stay-at-home mom. They have three children. Donavon, 5, is a full-time student at Minter Creek Elementary. Makenzi, 3, will start preschool in the fall.

“She can’t wait!” Speidel said.

Mercedez, the newest member of the family, is 2 months old.

The family currently shares a three-bedroom house with 10 people. The house has a black mold problem and only one bathroom.

Carter and Speidel share a 10-by-12 room with their two daughters, while Donavon shares a room with his two aunts. Speidel’s parents have the third room, and Speidel’s brother, Darcy, sleeps on the couch.

“We are so excited to finally be able to have our own home,” they said.

Carman and her children consider the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home on an acre of land a gift.

“Having hope for the future and knowing we will have a place to call home is a huge gift from God,” she said. “I am so grateful for this opportunity. Our healing has begun.”

Hugh McMillan is a longtime freelance writer for The Peninsula Gateway. He can be reached at 253-884-3319.