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Drive any back road in Alcona, Alpena, Montmorency, Oscoda, or Presque Isle County and you will see two truths side by side. The first is the beauty of this place -- the shoreline, the forests, the small towns where neighbors still know one another by name. The second is quieter, and it lives behind front doors: homes with failing roofs, furnaces limping through another winter, and families paying more than they can afford for housing that is falling down around them.
Northeast Michigan has a housing problem. It does not look like the housing problems of big cities, so it rarely makes headlines. But it is real, and it touches nearly every conversation our region is having about its future. Employers tell us they cannot recruit workers because there is nowhere for them to live. Young families who want to stay here -- or come home -- cannot find a house they can afford. Seniors who built this community are struggling to remain safely in homes they have owned for 50 years. Much of our housing stock is aging faster than our incomes are growing, and across 6,630 square miles of rural Michigan, no one is coming to fix that for us.
That is why Habitat for Humanity Northeast Michigan exists -- and why, after more than three decades, our work matters now more than ever. Across our five counties, Habitat stands alone as the only developer dedicated to filling the affordable, attainable, and workforce housing needs of our region.
Since 1989, Habitat has built more than 200 homes across our five counties. We are not a charity that gives houses away. Every Habitat homeowner invests hundreds of hours of their own labor, completes homeownership education, and pays for their home. What we offer is not a handout but a hand up -- a fair path to the stability that homeownership brings: children who stay in one school, families who put down roots, wealth that passes to the next generation, and a tax base that strengthens our towns.
Today that work has grown well beyond one house at a time. Our goal is to build eight to 10 homes each year and serve more than 100 families through Critical Home Repair -- new roofs, ramps, furnaces, and the essential fixes that keep seniors and working families safely in their own homes. Our ReStore in Alpena keeps affordable building materials in local hands and usable goods out of landfills, while generating revenue that goes right back into the mission.
And we are thinking bigger still. In Hillman, the Orchard Pines subdivision will bring 52 new homes over the next five years to a community that badly needs them, with infrastructure work beginning this fall. In Rogers City, the Klann-Fleming Subdivision will transform 18 acres into new housing for working families.
And here in Alpena, we are exploring a potential partnership with Presbyterian Villages of Michigan, a respected senior living organization, to further develop single-family homes within the existing Alpena Village. A collaboration like this would pair two mission-driven organizations with deep roots in senior care and affordable housing, making wise use of land already served by roads and utilities. It reflects something we believe strongly: the answer to our region’s housing shortage will not come from any single organization working alone, but from partners willing to combine their strengths for the good of the whole community. These are not just construction projects; they are partnerships with village and city leaders who understand that housing is economic development -- that a region cannot grow, or even hold its own, without places for people to live.
None of this happens because of any one person or organization. It happens because this community shows up. Volunteers swing hammers in the July sun. Churches pray over foundations and feed work crews. Local businesses sponsor builds. Donors -- from foundations to families dropping a few dollars in an envelope -- make every wall possible. Habitat is, at its heart, an expression of what our faith teaches: that everyone deserves a decent place to lay their head, and that we are called to be our neighbor’s keeper.
I have watched a mother turn the key in the front door of a home she helped build, her children racing past her to claim their bedrooms. I have seen an elderly veteran weep because a repaired roof meant he would not have to leave the house where he raised his family. These moments are not statistics. They are the reason we do this work, and they happen here -- in our towns, on our streets, among our neighbors.
Northeast Michigan needs Habitat for Humanity because Northeast Michigan needs housing -- safe, decent, affordable housing -- and because the surest way to get it is to build it together. If you have ever wondered whether one person can make a difference in a problem this large, I invite you to spend a morning on one of our build sites. You will leave with sore muscles and a full heart, and you will understand.
To volunteer, donate, apply for a home or repair, or simply learn more, visit www.habitatnemi.org, call 989-354-5555, or stop by our office and ReStore at 2630 US-23 South in Alpena. There is room for everyone in this work. There always has been.