West Tuality Habitat for Humanity and the Forest Grove / Cornelius Chamber of Commerce convened representatives from various agencies and organizations serving Western Washington County in October to discuss ways for greater collaboration and information-sharing towards all of our desires for building and sustaining safe and affordable communities for our diversity of residents. The name chosen for this coalition is Building Together | Construyendo Juntos, and it is hoped members will meet quarterly, as well as more freely-share information and resources in between meetings. 

Help build a house (no construction experience needed!), take photos with your smart phone or dedicated camera at one of our volunteer gatherings or special events, help setup or clean up after one of our special events, take photos in our ReStore, help customers with donations or purchases in the ReStore, be a volunteer cashier and more! West Tuality Habitat is ready to involve you - and your group, if you have one! - in a variety of volunteering roles!

Our latest Women Build event was another rousing success and kicked off NEW volunteers helping at the lastest West Tuality Habitat for Humanity construction site! More than 20 participants, mostly women, joined the regular core volunteer construction crew, our partner families (soon to be homeowners at the site!), and members of West Tuality Habitat’s staff to help continue building homes at Countryman Estates in Forest Grove. An extensive photo gallery is at the end of the blog.

A family of five is moving into their new Habitat for Humanity home in Cornelius, Oregon this month, celebrated by West Tuality Habitat for Humanity staff and volunteers, their extended family and neighbors. Their home is part of West Tuality Habitat’s Rapid Homesteads project to provide brand new, double-wide, energy efficient mobile homes on rural lots to participating households selected from West Tuality’s Homeownership Readiness program. More than 50 volunteers participated in preparing this property for the Stephens' home, including students from Catlin Gabel School and Pacific University, our long-term core volunteers and members of at least three other Habitat partner families.

Habitat for Humanity programs are focused on everyone having a safe, affordable place to call home, and our critical home repair program is part of that focus. In this month’s blog, we profile the repairs we did for one homeowner, to illustrate the issues vulnerable homeowners can face and why West Tuality Habitat’s critical repair program is so important.