Construction of Habitat for Humanity Sarnia-Lambton's four-plex in Forest is nearing completion while a five-plex in downtown Sarnia is just getting started.
Chief Executive Officer David Waters said it's the first time they've built a four-plex.
"The four-plex is well on its way. The units have all been drywalled and painted. Kitchens are going to go in later this week, and then once they go in, the rest of the flooring will be finished," he said. "Then moving on to things like light fixtures, etc. But they're well on their way. I think about 75 per cent complete."
Waters noted while construction is going well on Union Street in Forest, the five-plex at 236 Christina Street South in Sarnia is still in very early stages.
"It's going well; it's just in the permit stage. We're getting ready to submit our permit, so we should have that in by the end of the month, and then make sort of some headway there once we have the permit. We're planning to break ground in October, and between October and the first week of November, getting it enclosed is the goal."
The five-plex in Sarnia will be made up of tiny homes, and both projects are a new kind of build for Habitat, which usually builds detached single-family homes.
"Right now I've got maybe 10 active tiny applications in my hand, and we recently had to open up the four-plex to try to get one more family because one more family one of the families backed out. So we sort of did a little blitz on socials, and we got probably 100 and some inquiries about applications, and then we filtered that down to 10."
Those who are accepted into the new builds go through a vetting process and must donate their time back into Habitat programs.
"There are ranges for each level of unit size and family size. So then they just go through that normal process of getting incomes and debt checked, interview, and then it's decided whether they're picked or not. And then from there, they have to volunteer 500 hours of their time, either in the store, on the build site, or in events. Anything Habitat does, they can get their hours," said Waters.
The Sarnia tiny home project is expected to be completed by fall of 2027.
