Family gets welcome Christmas gift: A new home

WASILLA — After years of financial uncertainty, the Swanson family will finally have a permanent home.

On Monday, Dec. 14, Habitat for Humanity of Mat-Su announced their decision to help build Mike and Barbara Swanson and their three kids a house they can afford this coming spring.

Mat-Su College Director Talis Colberg, Mike Swanson’s employer, called Swanson a “great guy” and “an instrumental figure” in the school’s student ambassador program. He called the family’s award of the home “a poetic justice.”

“There couldn’t be a better fellow that could get an opportunity like this with Habitat for Humanity,” Colberg said.

Swanson said he was grateful.

“It’s a real blessing because we’ll have a house that exceeds what our income would allow us to have,” he said.

Habitat For Humanity is a Christian ministry that builds houses for people in need regardless of race or religion. The group has 1,400 affiliates in the U.S. and more than 70 national organizations worldwide. Since its founding in 1978, the group has helped more than 6.8 million people find affordable housing, according to its website (habitatnow.org). The group does not give houses away, but instead helps build or renovate houses, which it then sells to its partner families at no profit.

Mike Swanson has a bit of experience with the organization, having roomed with a volunteer in college in Chicago, where the founder of the international nonprofit also gave a commencement speech at Swanson’s graduation.

He didn’t know then that he would some day benefit from the program.

In 2000, Swanson moved to Alaska, and over the next 15 years lived and worked in 50 villages off the road system, he said. It was in Dillingham that he met his wife, Barbara, and her daughter, Shannah (now 13).

“I became a husband and a father in the same day,” Swanson quipped, remembering their wedding.

In January of 2009, their daughter Isabella was born in Anchorage, and the family realized they might not be able to return to Dillingham permanently, because of the expense. A gallon of milk cost $12 in the village at the time, and the same amount of gas cost $6.50. In that month, the family spent $1,600 to heat a one-and-a-half bedroom house, Swanson said.

“I had a decent job, but it wasn’t enough to make ends meet,” he said.

The Swansons soon moved temporarily into the Valley guesthouse of a friend, but it was later needed for other uses, and Mike Swanson didn’t have the income needed to support his family elsewhere.

“We sort of ran out of places to go,” he said.

The Swansons moved in with Family Promise of Mat-Su, but they couldn’t stay there forever, either. At one point Barbara and her daughters went back to Dillingham for a few weeks while Mike “couch surfed” and looked for jobs.

“(It) was the longest three weeks and four days of my life,” he said.

That winter, he got the job he has now at Mat-Su College, and things began to look up. The Swansons lived in a church parsonage and then a rental unit, but still felt like they were treading water to stay afloat. Their son Joseph was born in 2012, and they knew they’d soon need more space, which they couldn’t afford.

“We were never going to have enough money to save up for a down payment for a house,” he said.

Then he had a conversation with Habitat for Humanity’s Israel Nelson, who also works with Family Promise, at this summer’s Cardboard City event. Nelson suggested that Swanson apply for home-building help, and though Swanson was unsure of his family’s qualifications, he did.

A few months later, the whole family showed up to what they thought would be another interview, only to find they had been selected.

“I was pretty surprised when they started taking pictures and telling us congratulations,” Mike said.

His wife said she had had a hunch when they walked in.

“I had a feeling it was already said and done,” she said.

The family will have to wait until spring to build, but are already looking forward to having more space, and more money saved for gas in the car, food on the table and doctor visits when needed, Mike Swanson said.

For more information on Habitat for Humanity of Mat-Su, call 373-7278.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.

http://www.frontiersman.com/news/habitat-for-humanity-raises-eligibility-income-limits/article_14c8ae4c-67cb-11e4-b27f-1726cd2dbb18.html