Growing up in a Downstate Illinois home with no furnace, and only a space heater to keep one room warm in the winter, Marilyn Sweeney knew what it was like to be raised in a low-income environment.
Meeting Donald Sweeney, her future husband, when she was 16 and he was 19, they married two years later. They each earned two college degrees. He became an electric engineer and she a teacher. They lived on his salary. She had other ideas for her earnings.
“We were looking for a bigger home, but why should we have bigger and better while someone else has none,” she said. “I donated my salary to build homes in Waukegan for Habitat for Humanity. We donated enough for six so far in the Carter Woods subdivision.”
Sweeney helped organize a group of 18 women who were part of a 31-person team building a home for a single mother with school-age children Wednesday in Waukegan, just south of York House Road, as part of Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build program.
Jamie Roberts, the director of philanthropy for Habitat for Humanity Lake County, said Women Build is a program in its second year designed to focus on the challenges single women face acquiring a home.
Roberts said 80% of single-parent households are led by women, but lenders make it more difficult for them to qualify for a mortgage. Though they find it harder to get a mortgage, statistics show they have a better record than men repaying the loan.
“Women have some unique barriers to achieving homeownership,” Roberts said. “They are caregivers often caring for both their children and aging parents. We want to bring attention to this.”
Joel Williams, the executive director for Habitat for Humanity Lake County, said the team of 31 included 24 volunteers — including the 18 organized by Sweeney — and seven members of the organization’s staff. They built and erected some of the home’s 12 sections of walls Wednesday.
Donating enough money for Habitat for Humanity to build homes in Waukegan the past few years, Sweeney, whose husband died three years ago, heard about Women Build. She said she decided to start using tools like a hammer and gather a team to help build houses.
Learning about Woman Build at church a year ago, Sweeney said she decided to reach out to the women in her water aerobics class. She reasoned anyone with the fitness for water aerobics can use a hammer and other tools.
Building the floor and some of the area beneath it at a Waukegan home a year ago, she said she decided to do it again. She went to her water aerobics group once more and they got in touch with their friends.
“This year, I went back to the Aqua Club. They all started talking to people they knew, and we had 18 this year,” Sweeney said. “My husband is smiling in heaven seeing me using a hammer,” she added, referring to his proficient manual skills and her less-schooled techniques.
A Glenview resident, Sweeney said at first she wanted to help fund new homes in Waukegan rather than Chicago because the cost was less, and she could help twice as many people achieve homeownership. Learning more about Waukegan as a working-class city, she is glad she did.
“I can identify with these families,” she said. “I know what it was like for them.”
For Nancy Witt of Round Lake, spending her 50th birthday with her husband was the ideal way to help a single mother with children achieve the dream of homeownership she has enjoyed for 19 years.
“What a beautiful way to spend my birthday,” Witt said. “I feel blessed in my life, and I want to bless others. I know the feeling of owning something that is all your own. There’s nothing like it. I want to help others feel that way.”
Williams said Habitat for Humanity is in the process of evaluating several single mothers with school-age children to become owners of the house. They must need the house, the ability to pay the mortgage with a history of income and be willing to be a partner in the process.
Partnership, or sweat equity, has a number of elements. Williams said the prospective homeowner must spend a significant amount of time helping to build the house, as well as learn how to take care of it physically and financially.
Before the construction site sprouted, Waukegan Ald. Lynn Florian, 8th Ward, said it was an abandoned home for more than 20 years. She pushed the city to demolish it, and ownership was eventually transferred to Habitat for Humanity.
“It was an eyesore in the neighborhood,” Florian said. “It was hurting property values. This will help transform the neighborhood.”
Before Wednesday, Florian said she also volunteered her time to help with the construction and donated money.
