THUNDER BAY – Athena Martin just wants a little privacy.
She’s about to get it.
The 11-year-old has been sharing bedrooms with her three sisters – Shyann, Anabelle and Rylee – for years, and even spent a month with them last year in a hotel room after a fire forced them from their Limbrick Street home.
Thanks to Habitat for Humanity and 500 hours of work put in by her family to help refurbish and restore a 115-year-old McLaughlin Street home, Athena is about to get her own bedroom for the first time in her young life.
She can’t wait.
“It feels really good to have my own bedroom so that my sisters won’t come in. But knowing them, they will probably find a way,” Athena said on Thursday when her family took possession of the home, the costs of which they’ll cover through an interest-free mortgage through the charitable organization that’s put tens of thousands of families in homes of their own across the world.
Her father, Mike, said it’s a defining moment for his family and their future.
“It’s great,” he said. “It’s something to look forward to for the kids and me and the wife (Candis). We’ve been through tough times before, so this is awesome. The kids have never had their own room before, so it means a lot for them to share.”
The kids wasted little time getting familiar with their new home, racing up and down the stairs, showing every nook and cranny of the five-bedroom structure to an array of special guests on hand for Thursday’s ceremony.
Even an ordinary closet proved a place of wonderment for the youngest member of the family, seven-year-old Rylee.
“This my new bedroom,” she joked of the family’s likely new pantry.
It’s a life-changing moment, Mike said.
“We don’t have to rent anymore,” he said. “We went from a Limbrick fire last year to being in the hotel for a month to finding out we got this in May. It’s just going to change everything. It’s awesome.”
Mike said he never thought he’d ever be able to own his own home.
It just didn’t seem like it was in the cards, he said.
“I got denied by banks four or five times and took a chance. I applied here and got it,” Mike said, adding he didn’t think it was real at first.
Lana Vukelic, CEO of the Thunder Bay chapter of Habitat for Humanity, said home ownership these days is out of reach for far too many families.
It doesn’t have to be, she said.
“We’re able to offer no-interest, no down payment, but also the mortgage payments are geared to their income, so it makes it very affordable for their household income. If their income changes (the mortgage) will reduce or it will go higher, if they score a better job or they’re working more hours, whatever the case may be.”
It’s the 40th home built or refurbished by Habitat for Humanity in Thunder Bay, with another one, just across the street, expected to be turned over to a family some time in 2025.
