By Alexander MacInnes

June 6, 2007

PATERSON -- Joevornia Tisdale lives with her three adolescent children in her mother's 12th Avenue three-bedroom apartment.

Run the numbers: Five people from three generations, including two teenage daughters and a 61-year-old matriarch, in a three bedroom. It was time for Tisdale, an office manager for a medical rehabilitation center in Paterson, and her children to move, but home prices in Paterson, she said, made them feel trapped.

"It was depressing to the point I'm thinking, I'm never going to own a home and always be confined to a small space, never going to have a yard' and this was the best I was going to get," Tisdale said Tuesday at the construction site of what will be her new home.

Tisdale's story, in some form, could be repeated 199 times, as Paterson Habitat for Humanity celebrated providing 200 families a chance for affordable homeownership. After more than 20 years of building affordable homes, the organization has invested more than $12 million in residential construction, providing homes for about 800 people.

"She represents hardworking families who would never get ahead unless they get a chance of homeownership from Habitat," said Barbara Dunn, executive director for Paterson Habitat for Humanity.

Each of the three-bedroom units in the two family house will probably sell for about $170,000, Dunn said. Tisdale said similar units she looked at started at about $265,000. To become eligible, Tisdale had to invest 400 hours of "sweat equity" since last November -- volunteering with Habitat on other projects. She also had to prove that she could make payments on the home, with Habitat holding the no-interest mortgage.

Tuesday's ceremony took place on Harrison Street, one of eight properties in the city's 4th and 5th Wards that Habitat will start developing this summer, according to Dunn. Since its start, Habitat has built almost exclusively on the Northside, in the city's 1st Ward, but limited available land there has pushed them to cross the river for new opportunities.

"We've been building there for 20 years, working the city's free land," Dunn said of the Northside.

Some of the group's first projects, however, were in the 4th Ward, so it's a kind of return home, Dunn added. Habitat hopes to build 20 units a year starting next year and at least one 4th Ward resident welcomes future development in an area spotted with lots of vacant land.

"Instead of empty lots, put places for people to live in," said Mary Flowers, who watched the construction from her friend's porch. "A lot of people need a place to live and these vacant lots, nothing is being done with them."

Flowers, 50, lives in a cramped room in a boardinghouse on Harrison, sharing a kitchen and bathroom with other tenants. She said there are few options for affordable housing, but is thankful for having what she has.

"Thank God I got a roof and I'm not in the street or the shelter," Flowers said. "Thank God for that, but it's crazy. It's crazy."

For Tisdale, whose house is being built by volunteers from Langan Engineering of Elmwood Park, if it wasn't for Habitat, she could never afford buying a home, she said, adding that drives by the Harrison house each day on her way to work, thinking of moving in with her children.

"They're ecstatic," Tisdale said. "They can't wait. It's been a long time coming for us."

Reach Alexander MacInnes at 973-569-7166 or macinnes@northjersey.com.