"I love them, they deserve a home. I’m going to do what I have to do to get that for them.”
Alyssa and her family reached out to Comal County Habitat for Humanity in search of a safe, decent, and affordable home that would provide her daughters with the space and stability they need. Alyssa is a single mother to her daughters, 14-year-old Taelyn, 8-year-old Kamiah, and 7-year-old Chaslynn. “It’s always been just us four,” Alyssa explained. Their current apartment is not a good fit for the family as noise and space are continual issues that wears down their patience.
Loud noises are an issue for Alyssa and her daughters at all hours. The building’s fire alarm goes off repeatedly throughout the day, “The [fire] alarm goes off a lot […] I just don’t like the noise, it’s a lot.” Alyssa continues, “There’s a lot of noise upstairs, so that can be nerve-wracking when we’re trying to sleep.” At night, Alyssa’s upstairs neighbors create too much noise for her daughters to sleep and by morning they are exhausted when it is time to get ready for school.
The family feels cramped in their current apartment. Her youngest daughters, Kamiah and Chaslynn, share the same space and can be overcrowded with each of their belongings. Many nights Chaslynn sleeps with her mother, Alyssa. Knowing what was best for her daughters, Alyssa began to find a way to provide a decent home that would give her daughters the strength and stability they needed. When searching online, Alyssa found a pop-up ad featuring Habitat’s Home Program and seized the opportunity. She entered her information, attended a homeowner presentation, and waited for a call to know whether her family had been accepted or not. Now that they have been accepted, Alyssa and her three daughters are excited for their new Habitat home.
Before Habitat, Alyssa was stressed about providing a home for her three daughters, “I want to get my kids in a home, an actual home […] I love them, they deserve a home. I’m going to do what I have to do to get that for them.” Now she is excited to be on her way to a bright future for her and her daughters. Chaslynn looks forward to a bigger bed while Kamiah looks forward to more space and a place that can hold all her toys. Taelyn looks forward to a home that has more space for decorations and is a home that is, “forever, a forever home […] I feel like we’ll finally not have to move again and we’ll have the house forever and we can live there for a long
time.”
Alyssa and her three daughters are eager to start building their Habitat home. Alyssa has been working on her sweat-equity hours and her eldest daughter Taelyn has been helping her mom every chance she gets, “I feel like the more we come and do hours the faster we can get the house […] I enjoy coming with my mom and helping her out.”
Alyssa is grateful for the opportunity and is excited to continue her journey to homeownership. Her next step in her journey is to work alongside volunteers to build her family’s own Habitat home that they can call theirs forever. When asked if there was anything she wanted to say to the volunteers Alyssa said, “I just want to thank them and tell them that they’re a blessing. Just being there, coming out, and helping. It’s awesome that they do that.”