Mother ‘empowered’ in her Habitat home

For Brandon resident Zeenat Oyetunjai, home ownership seemed like a long and costly endeavour she wasn’t sure she’d be able to accomplish — but on Friday, she got the keys to her very first home.

“It feels like I’ve been hustling to climb, and I feel like I’ve reached the destination because it’s a big milestone to own a house,” Oyetunjai said.

“Owning this makes me feel empowered, it doesn’t make me feel poor.”

Oyetunjai and her family were selected for the affordable home ownership program offered through Habitat for Humanity Manitoba.

With applications, intake sessions and a vetting process, Habitat for Humanity gives low-income families the opportunity to own a home without a down payment and tailors mortgage payments to each family situation.

Oyetunjai emigrated from Nigeria to British Columbia in 2019 with her family. In 2020, she said, she left an abusive marriage and became a single mother to her teenage daughter and young son.

Now she works in addictions services with Prairie Mountain Health and is going to school to become a social worker.

“I feel like not just an immigrant now. I am a Canadian citizen, but because I am an immigrant, I would always feel like an outsider,” she said. “Canada feels like home now.”

She hasn’t moved furniture into her four-bedroom home on Stickney Avenue yet, but she’s excited to spend the first night there, even if it means sleeping on the floor with only a duvet cover, she said with a laugh.

“I feel like I have the luxury of being genuinely excited and not stressed,” Oyetunjai said.

“The most beautiful thing about this is the low pressure. Imagine if I was buying this with a traditional mortgage. I would be financially stressed right now,” she said.

Families pay 27 per cent of their monthly income as a mortgage payment, said Bonnie Boerchers, community engagement manager for the Brandon chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

“It’s a 15-year, zero-money-down, interest-free down payment, with (mortgage) payments geared towards their income opposed to the value of the home” Boerchers said.

To qualify for the program, families are required to have an annual salary ranging from $32,500 to $93,500, to have lived and worked in the area for two years, be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident and have children, she said.

Oyetunjai said she’s grateful for Canadian social services and for the “generous spirit of people.”

“People that don’t even know me are kind enough to contribute something into my life, and that encourages me to be hard-working in Canada,” she said.

As Oyetunjai toured her newly built house, she listed potential paint colours, noted where she wants decorations to go and explained the vision she has for her home.

“I’m proud of myself,” she said. “It’s a good feeling. It feels like home.”

» rgerrard@brandonsun.com