A forever home

Stacey and Lucan can’t describe how it feels to be the official owners of their home in Waitara, Taranaki; there are so many emotions.

“It’s just having that feeling we finally have something we own. I think, knowing that this home is going to be in our family for a very long time – it gives us a sense that our kids are going to be okay.”

In June, the whānau settled on their four-bedroom family home of six years, purchasing the house from Habitat for Humanity with the support of Habitat’s rent-to-own Progressive Home Ownership (PHO) programme.

Life has changed a lot since Stacey, Lucan, and their five children moved in, in 2019. They’ve done some landscaping at their home and put in garden boxes, vege gardens and fruit trees, and were introduced to a whole new team of supporters following Habitat Taranaki’s amalgamation with Habitat Central Region.

Stacey and Lucan, a process worker and teacher aide, say the experience has changed them for the better, and their family bond is stronger for it. One thing that hasn’t changed is the number of people living in the house – all five kids, now aged seven to 21, are still at home. In sharing their home ownership journey with their kids, they hope they’ve shown them they can do it too.

The couple were renting in Waitara when Lucan’s cousin encouraged them to attend a Habitat information session. He knew of a family who had been accepted into a Habitat house a few years earlier, and thought the programme would be of benefit to their whānau.

“We honestly didn’t think we had any shot at all as our debt at the time was very high. Thankfully, Habitat has amazing people who guided us all the way.”

Their connection to their home and knowing what they were working towards motivated them to get their debt down so they could be in a position to purchase. When they made an appointment with the bank earlier this year, they were expecting to hear what they’d need to do to get mortgage ready – but to their surprise, the bank approved their application.

“We thought that we’d get advice on what to tidy up and things, but it didn’t happen that way – they just said yes!” Stacey says.

There are a lot of things that make a house a home, and in Stacey and Lucan’s experience, getting stuck in and helping build it is one of them. As part of their partnership with Habitat, the family were required to help on site during the construction.

“Habitat gave us a book that we had to fill out with the days and times we were on site and what we did,” Stacey says.

“It was everything from using a nail gun to putting up scaffolding, we did some insulation, I built the fence around the whole property with [their neighbour]. We built each other’s sheds, the decks – we did heaps of cool stuff.”

Habitat’s PHO programme supports whānau to achieve their home ownership goals, offering security of tenure and affordable rent that contributes towards a deposit when they’re ready to buy – usually within five to 10 years.

Stacey and Lucan are excited to have purchased their home just over six years after moving in.

“It took a few days to accept that we finally own our house,” Lucan says. “We’ve always looked after it, but we appreciate it more – it’s a forever house now. We have a responsibility to make everything nicer and keep it that way.”