For the Bowie family, Habitat’s Leacross Landing means a fresh start and the promise of a very different sort of summer from previous ones.
The family — Scott, Michelle and their two young daughters, Phebe and Lois — are among the four families who, earlier this year, moved into their homes in the final phase of Leacross Landing, an enclave of 16 new townhomes built by Habitat for Humanity Greater Ottawa in Orléans.
“We have a little backyard where we can leave the kids and let them play,” says Michelle, an at-home mom and part-time retail worker. “When Phebe sees the neighbours’ kids playing outside, I can let her go and play with them. We have a space where we can do a little gardening.”
“It’s a nice neighbourhood,” says her husband. “We all care for the property and seem interested in it.”
Flash back one year, and the family was renting a two-bedroom apartment in a rough area. “Our building was very old, and things were starting to get bad inside,” says Scott, who works at the Ottawa Hospital. “We had roaches, and we had a storage unit that was broken into twice… It made you worry a bit.”
“The neighbours would stay inside and smoke marijuana,” adds Michelle, who grew up poor in the Philippines. The smoke would seep into the Bowies’ apartment, increasing their worry for their children.
The Bowies have now left all that behind thanks to the affordability of a Habitat home.
Like other Habitat families, they pay the principle on their mortgage but no interest, meaning they now own a home in a market where soaring prices and a modest household income had threatened to forever exclude them.
Along with mortgage payments, Habitat families log 500 hours of volunteer work with the organization. The Bowies put in their hours at Habitat’s ReStore and on the building site.
Having their new home is “like winning the lottery,” says Scott, before quickly adding, “Although it’s not free.”
MORE: Another family gets a new home at Leacross Landing
Back in the old neighbourhood
Coincidentally, Scott’s childhood home was in a new development just a 15-minute walk from where he now lives.
He says he knows the area well, and was once a member of a local Beavers troupe.
“I didn’t expect to come back here, but here I am… It’s neat to see how different it is from when I was young. All the trees have grown.”
He and Michelle looked to buy a couple of years ago but soon realized home ownership was out of their reach. Then his aunt saw an ad for Habitat on television and suggested they check it out. Michelle filled out the application, sent it off, and they were quickly approved.
The entire experience has been touching, says Scott. “Our kids are blessed. I’m mostly happy for them, for my family.”
Creating a community & confronting challenges
Completing Leacross Landing, a project that began in 2017, “felt amazing, that’s for sure,” says Alexis Ashworth, outgoing CEO of Habitat for Humanity Greater Ottawa.
“It was the first time that we created a community. Habitat has been a builder of individual homes but it was the first time we had 16 units together and families from around the world getting to know each other and forming a community of neighbours and friends. That was really different from what we had done in the past.”
The pandemic threw a wrench into the project because Habitat builds depend largely on community volunteers to prepare foundations, hoist lumber and swing hammers. COVID made that difficult, so Habitat had to rely on its small staff and very occasional volunteers to do the building, and the final phase got off to a late start.
Ashworth says the organization is also feeling the impact of soaring building material prices, especially for lumber, which began shooting up last year when the pandemic shut or slowed down supply chains. While some Habitat building materials are donated, that’s not always the case.
“It concerns me about what the future of our build costs is going to look like.”
Ashworth says shopping at the online ReStore is one way the rest of us can support Habitat, especially during the pandemic.
MORE: Building day at Leacross Landing
More Habitat projects in & around Ottawa
With skyrocketing prices in Ottawa and elsewhere making home ownership impossible for many first-time buyers, Habitat homes are taking on fresh importance.
To help meet that need, the organization is currently building Titus Landing at Wateridge Village. It’s an eight-unit stacked townhome development centrally located on the former east-end Canadian Forces Rockcliffe Airbase. Titus Landing includes accessible units and will exceed building code standards for energy efficiency by 25 per cent.
Habitat for Humanity Greater Ottawa has also partnered with Habitat for Humanity Thousand Islands to build 15 townhomes and stacked townhomes in Kemptville. The project breaks ground in spring, 2022 and will eventually be home to up to 64 individuals, including 30 children. It, too, will have accessible units.
“It’s the first time in Canada where two affiliates have come together like this, where one (Thousand Islands) had land and the other (Ottawa) had capacity to build large projects,” says Ashworth, whose goals when she joined the Ottawa chapter of Habitat in 2014 included a shift from single-home to multi-unit construction to increase the organization’s housing impact.
Also upcoming for the Ottawa chapter of Habitat: Mac Street in southeast Ottawa. It will comprise 14 townhomes and stacked townhomes in an established neighbourhood.
Learn more about Habitat for Humanity Greater Ottawa, including how to apply for a home, volunteer or donate.
