Hannah Edwards, Community Outreach Coordinator with Habitat for Humanity of Key West and the Lower Keys, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about insurance rates.
The rates affects a lot of people in the Keys.
Edwards said, “We work pretty closely with FIRM to try and get legislation passed to help remedy that, but it’s slow work. There was a little bit of good news this session, which is that they were requiring your flood contents to match your wind contents insurance. So if you had any contents insurance, for your home, on your wind policy, you then also had to have it on your flood policy, which raised everybody’s flood insurance. So they did get rid of that. But that’s kind of the only good news we’re getting. I don’t see why people who have elevated homes even need to have flood insurance personally. But it’s something we continue to work on. And we’re grateful to FIRM for all of their efforts as well.”
Habitat offers education classes for homeowners.
Edwards said, “We started doing this a couple of years ago, in partnership with the city, trying to get people ready to buy homes at the Lofts in Bahama village. As we were doing that, we realized there’s just a general need for more knowledge about buying a home, how to get ready to buy a home and about personal financial wellness in general. A lot of our adults today did not learn this in school. So we created a program that we took some of the classes that we offer to our Habitat homebuyers that are going through that program and we are now offering those classes to the whole community. We’ve added classes that deal with buying a home not through Habitat, buying a home on the open market.”
On May 7 there will be a class on working with a realtor to find an affordable home.
Edwards said, “How you go about doing that and how to make sure you choose a realtor that’s familiar with affordable deed restricted homes and programs.”
On May 21, there’s a class about budgeting.
Edwards said, “Which is very important. That’s something that I struggle with. It’s something that many of our existing homeowners still struggle with. So I’m encouraging anybody to take that one.”
On June 4, there will be a class about building and maintaining your credit and June 18 will be about managing debt and avoiding predatory lending.
Edwards said, “We’ve seen a real uptick in scams of all kinds, from predatory lending, to any kind of scam really. I think that AI has made scammers more sophisticated. We do see our homeowners get targeted quite a bit. It’s scary. We’ve had a few people lose significant amounts of money. So we’re trying to help people recognize that as well. These classes are all being held at Bernstein Park meeting room and they’re on every other Tuesday at 530. You can go to our website and check the schedule and sign up for any that interest you.”
The classes are free of charge.
Edwards said, “We provide some water, a little snack. It’s for your own knowledge. It really helps people to get prepared to buy an affordable home.”
Fundraising is also important for Habitat and an upcoming Bingo should help.
Edwards said, “Anyone that’s never been to the Green Parrot charity bingo, is missing out because it’s fun and it always helps a different nonprofit each Monday. So we are going to be there on May 27, which is Memorial Day weekend, the Monday after Memorial Day weekend. It’s just always fun. We have fun prizes. We have a good time doing it. Of course, there’s jello shots. That starts at 7.”
There are two rentals Habitat owns.
Edwards said, “We have 12 rentals in Key West and we have 12 in Stock Island. The ones in Stock Island are concrete buildings, and they have some serious issues. So we’re repairing them and renovating them. We’re doing one building at a time and it’s quite a bit of work. So anybody that would like to volunteer, we could really use your help. We’re out there every Saturday morning and during the week. So if you would like to get involved, we also have the new families that have just been accepted into our homebuyer program have been helping us with those as well. So you’d be working alongside homebuyer families. Anyone that wants to get involved just give us a call at 305-294-9006 or you can email me at [email protected]. We can use all the help we can get. We are actually transforming our rental program from just affordable rentals to a homebuyer training program. So we’re going to call it the path to homeownership, I believe. It is not rent to own that is kind of a misconception because you are not going to buy the rental units. You are living in the rental unit and while you’re living there, we will be offering the education classes, you will be doing some sweat equity, you’ll be getting ready to purchase a home, you’ll be preparing yourself to purchase a home and it might be through Habitat and it might be on the open market. We’re not putting any restrictions on that. We just want to have another element to the rental to help people prepare for homeownership.”
Habitat is still looking for a space for their warehouse.
Edwards said, “Space is at a premium down here. We would really like to be in Key West or Stock Island because the data we get from Habitat for Humanity International says that we should be close to our donors. Shoppers will travel but donors will not. So that’s donors as in donors of furniture and home good. Which you know would mostly be coming from Key West for us. So we’re really looking for space, anything from 2,000 square foot and up and anybody that has any ideas, please give us a call.”
For more information, click here: https://www.habitatlowerkeys.org/