Because Home Means Everything

Lakiesha and her family will be celebrating Thanksgiving in their new Atlanta Habitat home for the first time – and because home means everything to her, she has a lot to be grateful for.

On the top of her gratitude list, she’s thankful for her house, Atlanta Habitat, house sponsor Delta Air Lines and her children.

For several months before buying her new home, Lakiesha and her two children shared one bedroom at her dad’s house. This was after she decided not to renew the lease at her previous residence, where she was paying $600 light bills, $200 water bills, and enduring constant heating issues. Instead, Lakiesha opted to put her family’s “whole life” in storage and move in with her father as she was going through the process to get approved for an Atlanta Habitat first-time homebuyer mortgage.

“There was no way that I could be still living there, going through the program, and still be able to help prepare myself financially for the new house,” she said.

Lakiesha was determined not to start the new year in the same place, that she moved from her rental on New Year’s Eve of 2018 – while she was still in the early stages of the approval process.

The day Lakiesha started building on her future home, her oldest son, who’s in the Army, was deployed to Kuwait. Although he couldn’t be here to help her build and she was unable to see him off, he told her: “You need to go do this; I’ll be alright.”

Now, in her new home, Lakiesha’s youngest son (who celebrated his 7^th birthday in their new place) is enjoying his own room and roaming around the house freely. Her daughter is looking forward to attending college next fall.

“I’m grateful beyond measure to be able to walk throughout the house and every room is the same temperature,” she explained.

Lakiesha shared that having an affordable and permanent place to live has even impacted her health, as she lost 17 pounds over a month’s time between completing her build and moving in. She described this experience as a “tremendous amount of weight being lifted, literally and figuratively.”

It’s been two years since LaKiesha has put up a Christmas tree in her own space, but her new home has brought back the family’s holiday spirit.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of our Atlanta Habitat families to yours!