Home is the Key to a Brighter Future for Baylee and her Family

Before partnering with Habitat for Humanity Metro Denver, in Colorado, Tanya couldn’t see foresee her daughters’ future. Now she can. She doesn’t know the details, but she does know this: “Their future is bright.”

The family’s present is brighter, too. “The girls are doing well in school,” Tanya says. “We sleep better at night. We laugh more. We play more.”

Tanya and her daughters — Destiny, 15, and Baylee, 6 — had been renting a house that was in rough shape. They couldn’t do the laundry or the dishes because of faulty plumbing. The basement often flooded, and mold thrived. Tanya’s father tried to help her fix the place up, but more problems arose. The neighborhood where Tanya and her daughters were living wasn’t the safest, either. “I wanted more for them — for us,” Tanya says.

She started looking for a different place to live but was put off by the cost and conditions of the homes she saw. “I was very discouraged,” she says. “I felt like I was going to be stuck where we were living forever.” Then a friend told Tanya about Habitat.

The girls were impressed by their mother’s hard work on their new house to meet the sweat-equity requirements. “They watched me, twice a week, come and build on the house,” Tanya says. “That is special to them.” She and the girls moved into their new home at Christmastime. “Our first Christmas was amazing —waking up in our new house as a family.”

Tanya loves being a homeowner, and the girls love their home. The street where the family lives is safe, and the neighborhood kids come over all the time to play. “Our life is much more stable,” Tanya says. “As a mother, it makes me feel great knowing that my kids love it here. This is their home.

“Never did I ever think of being able to say, ‘This is our home.’”