Two families were given keys to their new homes on Tuesday.
The homes at 639 and 641 Sidney Street were built by Geertsma Homes in partnership with Habitat for Humanity Prince Edward-Hastings.
One of the new homeowners, Ji Yeh Choi, says it’s an early Christmas gift for her and her daughter.
“I still cannot believe that we got chosen,” Choi tells media members.
“We are going to be in the house very soon so we’re just really happy and really appreciate it.”
Choi is a single mother who works two jobs and goes to university full time. She says she is happy to be able to live in a home that will help bring stability and be a safe environment for her young daughter.
“It wasn’t really easy for me since I’m from Korea and English is not my first language. So language was always a barrier and the education, I had to start from the bottom again. So I always had to focus on a lot of things but always wanted to have better and safer housing for my daughter,” Choi said.
“(Being a) home owner was almost impossible as a single mom with one single income and then I got chosen by Habitat for Humanity and they’re just giving us this beautiful house. This is a big opportunity. It’s just more than I can describe.”
The other homeowners, Aaron Bateman and Jeanette Mineker, say its “completely surreal” to be able to move in to their new home.
For the two, it’s been a long journey getting picked for the home.
“We submitted the information (for a different property). We got called in January to say we were one of four families. We then got the message saying we didn’t get it which was disappointing but was like okay, well we tried the first one,” Mineker tells media members.
“We found out that this build was going to be coming up to do applications. Aaron didn’t want to, he was like ‘No, I don’t want to go through that again. It’s too much. It’s too emotional.’ I said, Let’s do it again. Let’s just try it. We submitted the information, and we got a call early June to say that we qualified and we were one of the families to be picked and our jaws dropped.”
Bateman says he was glad that they applied again and were able to meet the criteria to be selected.
He went through what the process was like in order to get selected for the home.
“The whole process, like the volunteer time, we see it’s going to be 500 hours in a year, we were like “that’s gonna take forever to get that time in” but it went by really quick.”
The two will be moving in along with Bateman’s daughter and will have an additional bed for visits from Mineker’s daughter.
The family is set to move in on Friday.
