“There was no way this was happening. It was genuinely a dream come true.”
Mikaela Ghiena Lopez and Jose De Jesus are a young, hardworking couple who have been together for six years, since their junior year of high school. Both work at Mease Countryside Hospital, where Mikaela serves as a Nurse Intern II in the Emergency Room and Jose works as a Transporter. They are also both students at St. Petersburg College, where Mikaela is finishing her Associate’s in Nursing on her way to earning her RN license. Jose is pursuing his accounting degree.
For Mikaela and Jose, this Habitat home represents the beginning of everything. Mikaela has lived in the same apartment since she was two years old, and over the past nine years the conditions have steadily declined. A flood caused by an upstairs neighbor left lasting damage that was never properly repaired, leading to ongoing problems with mold. During Hurricanes Milton and Helene, her bedroom window was so compromised that she had to tape a garbage bag to it just to hold the water back.
When Mikaela and Jose learned they had been accepted into the Habitat program, the news felt surreal. “There was no way this was happening. It was genuinely a dream come true,” Mikaela recalls. This was their second attempt, and the acceptance affirmed every hope they had been holding onto. For the couple, a Habitat home means safety, stability, and a future they have built with their own hands. They hope their story inspires others who feel too young or too uncertain to apply. “Don’t be afraid. We were in the beginning too, and look at us now, on the way to having our dream accomplished.”
This home is sponsored by
