The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor There's an old saying in real estate that only three things matter: location, location, location. Location will also be an important factor for the Flin Flon branch of Habitat for Humanity, which will build new homes for the working poor. 'When a chapter is looking for land, our hope would be that they consider a few different variables,' says Steve Krahn, vice-president of the non-profit's Manitoba division. 'First of all, cost, certainly, is one of the things they want to consider. Secondly they want to consider the location. 'If at all possible you want it to be in a place where the family will be close to services. You can't necessarily expect that the family will have a vehicle. They might, they might not. 'So if you have a property that's far from services, then you're not doing that family a favour by building on a lot that's far away from all those things. So ideally you'd want to be in town, whether it's downtown or a suburb, I don't know. That is up to the (local) chapter to determine what's most favourable as far as cost-wise and also value for the family.' Habitat is expanding into Flin Flon as part of a plan to grow its presence across rural Manitoba. Krahn stresses that Habitat is not a giveaway program, as homes are sold to low-income earners at full market value. However, homebuyers require no down payment and pay no interest on their mortgages. Mortgages can stretch into the decades and are based on 25 per cent of a household's gross income. Outside Winnipeg, Habitat branches already exist in Dauphin, Portage la Prairie, Selkirk, Steinbach and Lundar, among other locations.
