Evergreen Habitat considers applicants’ ability to make regular payments and cover closing costs based on credit history, employment and debt-to-income ratio.
Homebuyers who fall at or below 65 percent of the area’s median income, a benchmark for affordable housing eligibility, qualify for a 4.5 percent mortgage interest rate. Evergreen Habitat uses loans backed by the Washington State Housing Finance Commission.
This project is part of Habitat’s Home Trust program, meaning all the houses will only be resold to another qualifying homebuyer to ensure housing costs aren’t inflated. The organization asks homebuyers to participate in constructing their home through sweat equity hours. Hours can be completed by building their home, a neighbor’s home, attending required classes or volunteering at the Habitat Store or in the community.
Middleton said Evergreen Habitat anticipates 1,000 volunteers will contribute a combined 45,000 hours to this project. Work on infrastructure will begin in late fall and go through the winter, she said, with construction starting in spring 2025. Middleton expects the first set of homeowners will move in at the end of 2025.
Recent donations to Evergreen Habitat for Humanity, including $2.5 million from the Ed and Dollie Lynch Fund at the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington and $75,000 from the Cowlitz Tribal Foundation, will help cover the cost of the project.
Each home in the 132nd Cottage Homes project will have two stories, two bedrooms, 1½ bathrooms, a kitchen, living space, closet storage, a stacked washer and dryer and share a community green space outside. The units will range from about 980 to 1,070 square feet.
By definition, a cottage home is small and is designed with simple architecture.
“We wanted to focus on a shared community green space,” Middleton said. “So this was one of the innovative solutions that we came up with to better serve more homeowners, families, single folks, anyone within Clark County that is in need of an affordable housing opportunity.”
