A St. Albert family will benefit from a new $250,000 home donated by Daytona Homes.
The company is one of five from the Capital region that donated a home to the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity.
It’s the second year that a group of builders donated homes to the charity, which provides home ownership for low-income families. It’s the first time that St. Albert has been the site of a donated home and the first time donating for Daytona Homes.
“For them to say, we believe in Habitat for Humanity, we believe in helping families that want to stay and live in St. Albert, we’re ecstatic,” said Habitat CEO Alfred Nikolai.
The home is a two-bedroom carriage unit valued at $250,000. It’s located in the Terraces of Oakmont and is ready for occupancy, said John McCaffray, vice-president of housing for Daytona Homes.
Daytona founder Ralph Hutchinson raised his family in St. Albert and now his son Tally runs the company and still lives in the city, McCaffray said.
The opportunity to help a family appealed to the company because its 135 employees are mostly young people starting their families.
“Not only is [Daytona] family-owned, but we have a culture around supporting family and so this is sort of the extension of that,” McCaffray said.
Habitat will select a family from the pool that applied for residency at Aurora Place, a multi-family complex being developed in Akinsdale. Nikolai isn’t sure when the family will move into the Daytona home.
In keeping with the charity’s qualifying criteria, the family will have to provide 500 hours of sweat equity. But since the house is already finished, the work will take place at another location, such as Aurora Place or the charity’s production facility in Edmonton, Nikolai said.
“This family now will be able to stay in St. Albert. They’ll be able to raise their kids in St. Albert … and I think make St. Albert a better community,” he said.
Habitat has already approved 12 families for Aurora Place, where five of the eventual 30 units will be built this year, he said.
Last year three homebuilders donated one home each to Habitat. This year there were five and Nikolai is already getting indications that there will be more next year.
This year the participants were Daytona Homes, Christenson Developments, Rohit Group, Landmark Group and Cameron Homes.
The donations not only help the community but help the builders because Habitat families eventually become home buyers, Nikolai said.
Mayor Nolan Crouse said Daytona Homes should be “congratulated and acknowledged” for its donation.
“It reinforces that the private sector is also involved in making sure that families have affordable living,” he said.
