July 15, 2007

By Will Elliott/Frontiersman

SETTLERS BAY - Carl and Leanna Cornforth of Wasilla never thought they would be homeowners. Carl works full-time while Leanna juggles full-time school and the care of the couple's 2-year-old daughter. With another child on the way, the Cornforths wanted a home of their own, but had neither the money nor time to make it a reality.

PHYLLIS SHAFER/Alaska Community Development Corporation. Mary Beall and family take a break from building their new Settlers Bay home through the Alaska Community Development Corp.’s Self-Help Housing Program. Beall and five other familes worked to build each other’s houses with low-interest loans and other assistance from the non-profit Palmer-based organization.

“We couldn't even afford rent,” Leanna Cornforth said, let alone buy a new home.

Now the couple is getting a new four bedroom ranch home in Settlers Bay, thanks to the help of volunteers and a program from the Palmer-based nonprofit Alaska Community Development Corp.

“It's like a dream come true,” Cornforth said.

ACDC offers a number of grant-funded programs to assist qualified families, which help with everything from buying a new home to weatherizing, repairing or modifying an existing one. The Cornforths are part of ACDC's Self-Help Housing Program, which offers a low-interest housing loan of $140,000 to cover materials for building a new home and requires the Cornforths to contribute $60,000 in labor while the home is built.

ACDC also obtains the lots, supervises construction, purchases materials and hires subcontractors, among other things.

Other organizations, from church groups to government entities to reality television shows, offer similar programs. What makes ACDC's approach stand out is its focus on building a community, not just a cluster of houses, ACDC Executive Director Pat Shiflea said.

Along with the Cornforths, five other families in the same neighborhood will build homes with ACDC help. The families all work together, Shiflea said, building strong community ties along with the homes.

“Everybody puts in at least 30 hours a week on everybody's house,” Leanna Cornforth said. “Its not building my house, it's building the project. We get to know [the other participants] pretty well, being out there and interacting with them. You actually know who lives next to you.”

Because the Cornforths work or study full-time already, those additional 30 hours a week are a huge commitment, Leanna Cornforth said. Carl Cornforth puts in 12-hour days when not working at his other job and works a few hours evenings at the site.

“That sweat equity is exactly what it's called,” she said.

In the end, the new homes, close community and the pride of ownership are all worth it, Cornforth said.

“I'm keeping a scrapbook. We've taken pictures of every step possible,” she said. “We would have never been able to do anything like this if not for the program.”

The Cornforths were selected from more than 200 families in an application process with ACDC that took about a year. Shiflea said he wished more families would apply.

“With all of the great benefits of the self-help housing program, you would think that we would have long waiting lists to get into the program, but we don't,” Shiflea said.

Some families need help to become eligible for the program, Shiflea said. ACDC requires participants to have good credit and low debt. Others are eligible but don't apply because the program sounds too good to be true. Anyone who cannot afford a modest home by customary means is encouraged to apply, whether single, married, retired, with children or without. No down payment is required by participants, and interest rates on the loan are between 1 percent and 2 percent.

“They don't fully comprehend that there isn't a catch,” he said.

This week ACDC will close on the purchase of eight lots in Houston to begin the process of starting a Self-Help project in that area. A recent grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development Agency will go toward two more Self-Help projects in Houston and Palmer. The Alaska Housing Finance Corp. and the Washington, D.C.-based Housing Assistance Council provided additional funds.

For more information about ACDC's programs, call 746-5680 or visit www.alaskacdc.org.

Contact Frontiersman reporter Will Elliott at 352-2252 or will.elliott@frontiersman.com.