Video: A Habitat for Humanity Home is Still Impacting its Owner

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Next month marks four years since one Starkville Habitat for Humanity homeowner unlocked the door to her new home.

She says words can’t describe the impact it’s had on her family.

“It’s a terrific, outstanding, and a marvelous feeling,” says Demetra Petty.

That’s how Petty felt nearly four years ago and how she still feels now.

“I’ve moved from a small bedroom trailer, to a big four bedroom house, that will belong to me in twenty years, no doubt. Flower bed, vegetable garden, basketball goal for the kids, a front, back, and both sides yard for my kids, speechless.”

Petty’s milestone of becoming a homeowner, was the first one witnessed by Joel Downey, who heads up the Starkville Habitat program.

“But really, what’s important is seeing how they take the house and how they raise their kids in the house, like Demetra has got this beautiful little garden out front, and you know, that’s what’s really more important to us, is what impact is she going to have 20 years down the road? What impact is it going to have on her kids,” says Starkville Habitat for Humanity Executive Director, Joel Downey.

Habitat is not a program with people getting a free house, it’s a system to help you take the first step. The rest is up to you.

“We have an interview and then a home visit to see what conditions she’s really in and then she’s got to do the sweat equity and all of that kind of thing; taking three classes, three educational classes, and once she gets the house, she’s got twenty years of mortgage to pay.”

Petty went from having two bedrooms and two kids, to having four bedrooms with four kids, four years later, and says the memory for her children is overwhelming.

“Having a child to even be able to even build on their own home, to even just stand up on the foundation and not know what it’s going to be like, and even with him just being a child himself, that will be a lifetime. I mean, he can talk about it since forever and some children will not even know what it’s like.”

The Starkville organization builds two homes each year.