Construction Challenge

Latoya Palmer once drove 70 miles round trip to work in Mount Pleasant from her crime-ridden apartment complex in Summerville.

Allison Keane, a single mother of three boys, struggled to pay rent on a Dunes West home working as an administrative assistant.

Sandrea Collins, a Mount Pleasant bank teller, and her daughter shared a bedroom in her grandmother's Huger home.

Myriam Martinez, a Colombian refugee, lives with two daughters in a Mount Pleasant townhome too expensive to buy.

Finding homes in Mount Pleasant, where houses cost an average of about $400,000, is nearly impossible for those living on working-class salaries.

That's why four builders — I'On Group, John Wieland Homes, Structures Building Co. and J.D. Smith Co. — gathered in a cul-de-sac last week to build four homes from foundation to finish in East Cooper Habitat for Humanity's Construction Challenge.

Times are tough in the housing market, but it's times like these when build-ers can least look away, said Richard Jackson, John Wieland Homes project manager.

Jackson said the slowdown in building meant that contractors and subcontractors had more time to donate.

"Still, it's difficult for everybody," Jackson said. "Everyone is strapped."

Once each woman and her family complete the required hours of "sweat equity" working on Habitat homes, they can move to Habitat's neighborhood on McAdams Court off S.C. Highway 41, bringing them closer to their jobs and making their budgets. Since contractors built the homes in a single week, some families won't have completed the required 350 hours.

Palmer and her daughter were living with her family in the Phillips community near Dunes West in Mount Pleasant, but conditions were overcrowded, so she moved to Haven Oaks apartments on Old Orangeburg Road in Summerville. Crime there eventually chased her back to living with her family in a small mobile home. Last week, she was on hand as contractors built her new home.

"It's amazing," Palmer said. "I'm still trying to take it all in."

Palmer and the other families spent the week helping builders, usually cleaning up behind them.

Jackson thought up the challenge project during last year's builders blitz in which Habitat for Humanity affiliates built five homes in Charleston, Dorchester and Berkeley counties. Building four homes at one location provided an opportunity for friendly competition.

Crews with Structures Building Co. and John Wieland were certain they'd be finished perhaps even before the Saturday deadline, but J.D. Smith Co. across the cul-de-sac experienced a setback and was at least a day behind.

Mike Barton, J.D. Smith's project manager, joked that quality takes time.

Each home was the same standard cottage-style Habitat for Humanity model: a single-story, three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,200-square-foot home. But I'On planned to build Collins' home with "green" features. Steve Craver, I'On Group vice president of construction, said it would be the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified Habitat home in the state. By this week, homes on seven of the 11 lots on about 2 acres between Park West and the Phillips community will be complete or in the construction process. Mount Pleasant annexed the land in May 2007.

Reach Jessica Johnson at 937-5921.