As the year 2021 comes to a close, Greene County homeowners continue to receive help with repairs and replacements.

Heart of Iowa Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Jeff Lamoureux says Greene County volunteers were able to help three homeowners with projects this year. One was an exterior house painting project at 706 12th Street South in Grand Junction. The second project was replacing gutters and other minor exterior repairs to a home in Scranton and the final project was repairing a front porch for a home in Rippey at 404 3rd Street, along with utilizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture and separate contractors to replace the home’s septic tank.

Lamoureux notes the septic tank wasn’t done by Habitat volunteers, but they have resources with the USDA to take care of the issue for the homeowner.

“I guess the reason I tell that story is I want people to know that if any housing need that you have, there’s other organizations that help with housing, but contact Habitat for Humanity, our office, first. If we can’t help it with our volunteers sometimes we can find ways to help to get those repairs or to get the replacements that they need.”

Lamoureux adds the number of housing projects was reduced due to COVID-19 limited their volunteer resources.

“Habitat International did say they wanted some of our volunteer groups to be smaller, there was some guidelines there, especially early in the spring and early summer still being somewhat cautious with getting out and about.”

These projects are a part of Habitat’s Helping Hands projects, where volunteers do exterior home repairs for owner-occupied homes.