“Owning a Habitat home will grant my family freedoms we feel we otherwise wouldn’t have.”
Amaris (24), Nando (22), and Priam (19) are a family of siblings who are on their journey to homeownership together through the Habitat program. The trio is very tight-knit, and they make sure to keep love, laughter, and strength at the forefront of their relationship with one another. “We could not have made it through our past battles if it weren’t for our deep love for one another, nor without our ability to find reasons to laugh and smile,” Amaris shares.
It has been years since the Ortiz-Muñiz siblings have had a place to call their own. “For most of our childhood and now part of our adult lives, my brothers and I have never had home security. Ever.” Like many other families in our community, Amaris and her brothers have faced the constant struggle of moving from place to place due to high rent prices and long waitlists. “When you’re growing up and being faced with what feels like endless adversity, you’re forced to believe that owning a home isn’t something possible for people like us,” Amaris says. “We’d like to prove that wrong.”
When the siblings learned they had been accepted into the Habitat program, their first thought was, “This is it. This is for us,” followed by a few tears. “We’ve dreamed of this for so long, and now it’s going to come true.”
Amaris, Nando, and Priam are all looking forward to finally having their own spaces. They will no longer have to share a room and will each have the opportunity to make their own space feel like home. “It’s been years since we’ve slept in our own rooms, and we definitely miss it,” Amaris says. “Owning a Habitat home will grant my family freedoms we feel we otherwise wouldn’t have. It’ll gift us opportunities to pursue our passions, continue our education, and focus on our careers.”
Volunteer to change lives like the Ortiz family today.
