Habitat Homeownership: “It is a dream come true.”
On many days, CorDaysia wanted to give up.
Home ownership seemed out of reach, impossible for a single mother of three after a series of challenges that snowballed into everyday life.
The family packed and moved five different times. They currently live crammed into an a three-bedroom house with CorDaysia’s grandmother, the same place where she grew up. CorDaysia shares a room with her daughter. Her two sons bunk together in another bedroom.
The house isn’t large enough for friends to visit.
While CorDaysia is employed, making a significant down payment to buy a house was too daunting. Her initial application to buy a home from Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg was denied due to poor credit she never realized was a problem.
“I had never checked my credit report,” she said. Hospital bills she thought insurance had paid lowered her credit score.
The money CorDaysia planned to use for car repairs went toward medical bills accrued after one son broke his leg. That left her without a vehicle for seven months. When the pandemic hit, she lost her job of seven years at the post office. “Getting another one right away was not an option,” she said because her son was wheelchair-bound. His recovery was her top priority.
CorDaysia went a year without a personal cell phone.
“When it was starting to get me down to the point it was overwhelming, I got down on my knees and prayed and kept going,” she said. “Even when I thought I couldn’t, I kept going.”
After months of waiting and improving her credit, she received good news. A second application to the Habitat Homebuyer Program had been accepted; she is one of four families who will live in the first Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg homes constructed in Charles City.
CorDaysia will be able to afford the monthly, zero-interest mortgage that she will pay back to the Habitat affiliate so more homes can be built in the community.
CorDaysia was reluctant to tell her children that they finally have a home of their own until she was 100% sure it was really going to happen because truthfully, life had become stressful.
She kept reassuring them they were going to find a home, but they kept asking when. For years, her response lacked a timetable.
“My oldest son is 12, and I have been working toward having a home since the day he was born,” she said.
The dream felt real at the recent groundbreaking.
“It was the happiest day of my life,” she said. “It is a dream come true. My restless nights are over.”
The three-bedroom, two-bathroom house will be an easy commute to a local hospital, where she works as a behavioral health technician.
Best of all, CorDaysia is excited her children will be able to invite friends to their house, to their own backyard.
“It’s always been only us,” she said. “They’ve wanted company for so long.”
CorDaysia and her family expect to move in by summer 2024. “We made it!” she said. “This is actually happening. No more forms to fill out. No more waiting. It’s so great. I’m so grateful to Habitat.”
