Qualifying for a Habitat Home

How Do I Qualify to Own a Habitat House?

Family Criteria

Thank you for your interest in becoming a Habitat for Humanity homeowner

Many people mistakenly believe that Habitat for Humanity gives homes away. That is not true. We use corporate and community sponsorship dollars, donations and volunteer labor to build our homes. We then sell our homes to our partner families. Habitat holds the mortgages on our homes. We do not charge our homeowners interest. And we offer our partner homeowners geared-to-income monthly payments.

Before you complete an application, answer the following questions

If you are considering applying for a Habitat home, it is important that you answer the following questions:

Have you applied for a mortgage at a bank and been turned down?
Is your current housing unsuitable, unsafe, unhealthy or inaccessible?
Do you have a stable total gross family income of at least $22,000 (to calculate this, include the gross annual income of all non-student adults who would be living in the home)
Is your debt load low?
Would you be willing to partner with Habitat for Humanity Sarnia/Lambton to build and buy your own home?

If you answered "yes" to these five questions, you should apply for consideration for a Habitat home. Remember that we also require all of our partner families to complete 500 volunteer hours before receiving a home. (more info) You must have lived in Sarnia/Lambton for at least two (2) years.

Kindly note that if you currently own property or your own home, we cannot consider your application.

Please also note that, at this time, Habitat for Humanity Sarnia/Lambton does not undertake renovation projects on existing homes.

How does Habitat determine if I make enough money? Or if I make too much?

We are guided by the Canada Revenue Agency in setting our income thresholds.

As stated above, we look for a minimum gross family income in the range of $22,000

Our income maximums depend on how many bedrooms your family requires.
We get our information about this from the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC). CMHC annually publishes Core Need Income Thresholds. Their guidelines indicate that the number of bedrooms a family needs is based upon the following:

parent(s) should always have a separate bedroom
there should be no more than two children in a bedroom
opposite sex children over the age of 5 years should be in a separate bedroom
household members over the age of 18 should have a separate bedroom

Using the above as a guideline, you can easily determine how many bedrooms your family would require. Once you do, consider the following table to find the maximum gross family income for your family:

One bedroom $26,000 maximum gross income/year

Two bedrooms $31,000 maximum gross income/year

Three bedrooms $36,500 maximum gross income/year

Four bedrooms $40,000 maximum gross income/year

How Do I Apply?

Contact H.F.H.S.L. for an application form.
460 Christina St. North
Sarnia, ON
N7T 5W4
habitatsarnia@xcelco.on.ca
(519) 336-7075
The Family Selection Committee will contact you for an in-home interview if you meet our requirements.

The goal of Habitat for Humanity is to make good single and multiple unit housing available to families who would otherwise not be able to purchase their own home. In partnership with many volunteers from the Habitat community, you will help build your own home. You will own this house by making monthly interest free mortgage payments like most new homeowners.

Privacy Policy:

Habitat for Humanity Sarnia/Lambton respects you privacy. We will use your information only to process your application, follow up contacts, public relation purposes with your permission, reference requirements and mortgage approvals. We disclose this information only to our employees and associates only to accomplish the above purposes. If you wish to withdraw your application and be removed from our list, please call us at (519) 336-7075.