A milestone was reached in Kamas on Thursday. It was both physical and abstract. It was a professional one, and a private one. It was a very personal moment, and it was shared and celebrated by a group.
Mountainlands Community Housing Trust’s 50th home in the mutual self-help program passed inspection that day. It was also the day program participants like Becky Cranney could call one of the 10 homes in the Prairie Junction subdivision their own.
Like all participants, Cranney and her family have been required to put in 30 hours a week for the past nine months working on the subdivision. While her adult sons, one a construction worker, were allowed to help with those hours, Cranney was required to do at least 15 of those herself swinging a hammer or wielding a nail gun.
Bridgette Smith, wife and mother of two, learned to install hardwood floors in the middle of winter and nail down roof shingles in mid-summer.
Janice Kocher, Utah housing specialist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program, said this may have been the fastest any group has ever finished in the state.
“For 10 families to finish in nine months is remarkable,” she said. “It helps when you have motivated families and a good construction manager.”
These projects normally take a year and sometimes longer if the group has problems working together or supplies are slow in coming, she explained.
Mountainlands executive director Scott Loomis said this was the “best group” of self-made homes they’d done (averaging about one per year for the last six years).
In fact, the homes could have been done in only eight months but participants voted to install a bit more wood flooring, he explained.
Everyone at the Thursday afternoon ceremony credited construction supervisor Guy Mecham with the group’s cooperation and the speedy completion. Mecham credited the success to the home owners.
“They stayed together as a team and adopted the concept that all the homes were theirs,” he said. “Once they became a team, you couldn’t stop them.”
Participant Cranney said they were never allowed to refer to any of the homes as “theirs.” They were always called Lot 3 or Lot 4.
“It was good to think of all of them as your home. It gave us a sense of pride for the whole neighborhood,” she said.
Loomis predicted this group of 10 families will be great neighbors after working together so well for so long.
Cranney said it’d be hard to imagine a future that was otherwise after spending so much time together.
Participant Smith said it was really hard work and days came when she wanted to quit.
Program pioneer Dave Brown, former housing director for Rural Development, called each completed project a miracle.
“The task at first seems so ominous, it’s just a leap of faith you jump into,” he said at the ceremony. “It’s a tribute to your capacity today, tomorrow and in the future.”
Mountainlands board member Fred Tripp said he’s always amazed at how professional the finished products are even though so few of the participants have prior experience.
Each home located directly behind the Kamas Food Town is 1,500 square feet and all 10 had to be completed before anyone could move in.
Smith said she was pleasantly surprised how unique each home is despite the egalitarian approach to construction.
The mutual self-help program is ongoing and Mountainlands Community Housing Trust continuously accepts applications for future projects.