Habitat for Humanity Woodbury

Photo: Courtesy of Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity volunteers are hard at work building townhomes at Woodbury's Garden Gate developments.

An exclusive guest list of six can attend family night at the Robinson home. It’s two parents, four children and often one Disney movie tucked into a living room in Woodbury.

It’s a house party made possible by Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity and its large supply of supporters. The Robinson home in Bailey’s Arbor is one of 49 Woodbury homes built by the affordable housing organization since 2003—a total unsurpassed by any suburb in the seven-county metro area.

Nancy Brady, a vice president with Habitat for Humanity, says Woodbury is a metro area leader because of the city’s goal to provide quality housing to residents in lower economic levels. This is realized through a partnership between city leaders and various volunteer groups.

“A partnership with a group like Habitat is that they are not only coming in, building something and going away,” says Karl Batalden, the housing specialist/associate planner for the city of Woodbury. “They develop those partnerships in the community with congregations, civic organizations and school groups, so it’s so much of a community get-together.”      

Garret Robinson, father and husband in the Robinson clan, was struggling to make it as a real estate agent in 2004, and he needed help from the community to provide for his growing family. “It was hard to make a consistent living,” says Robinson, 33. “Some things would come in, but we were barely scraping by.”

The Robinsons met the financial hardship requirement of earning 30 to 50 percent of the area’s median income. They satisfied Habitat’s mortgage requirements and volunteered the requisite hundreds of hours for home construction. In 2007, they moved into the three-bedroom townhouse they would purchase with the help of an interest-free loan.

“I can’t even explain what a blessing it was,” says Robinson, a St. Paul native who went on to become a youth pastor and is now in information technology. “We are very fortunate to get into a Habitat home. An interest-free loan is incredible. I was in real estate for a couple of years and know how much interest you pay on a home.”

Bob Hamer, a retired engineer and member of the 3M Cares volunteer group, donated 56 days to Habitat for Humanity last year. The Woodbury man has donated time to Habitat for 16 years because he agrees with the group’s philosophy of helping people help themselves. He also does it because he gets to meet the future homeowners as they pound nails and drive screws together.

“You get to meet these people, and after awhile, they kind of open up and tell you about the countries that they come from and their families, the hardships they’ve had to endure in their home country, and some of the hardships that they’ve had to endure here,” says Hamer, 75. “[Things] like living in a one-bedroom apartment with two or three kids in a not-so-nice neighborhood.”

Habitat for Humanity has also made a significant contribution to buffering the stalled home construction market with its goal of building, rehabbing and repairing 730 homes in the metro area.

“In a suburban community, it’s finishing unfinished developments … so they are not living in an in-progress construction zone that is not going anywhere,” says Brady, a Woodbury resident. 

Habitat plans to add 24 new homes to Garden Gate, an otherwise fledgling development in Woodbury.

“It was a financially-stressed situation for the homeowners that were already there as well as the fact there were foreclosures and bankruptcy associated with the previous master developer,” Batalden says. “The Garden Gate story is really neat. It’s more than an affordable housing story; it’s also a true neighborhood revitalization story.”

To learn more or to become a volunteer, visit tchabitat.org.

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