The COVID-19 pandemic has not stopped Middlesex Habitat for Humanity (HFH) from moving ahead on its planned Westbrook build.

As construction work was almost immediately deemed essential by Governor Ned Lamont, HFH brought in contractors to do site work and plumbing. A slab foundation has been set and the plumbing is underway, according to Middlesex HFH Executive Director Sarah J. Bird.

“Our plan is to get the site ready to bring volunteers on,” Bird said.

HFH staff is installing wood sills on the foundation onto which the frame of the home will be built, she explained. The organization plans to have volunteers begin work on the frame on July 8.

A concern for HFH is that many of its volunteers are retired.

“A lot of our long-term volunteers are over the age of 65,” Bird said. “Historically, for all habitats it typically ends up that way.

“Through the entire pandemic our number one concern is that our volunteer workforce is part of the [demographic most vulnerable] to COVID-19,” she continued. “There are habitats that are not bringing people over the age of 65 back quite yet. We have worked very hard to come up with a safety plan.”

As of May 25, up to 25 people are now permitted to gather outside in Connecticut, but HFH will limit their volunteers to 10, in addition to staff members who are working on the site. Volunteers and staff alike will be required to wear masks, wash their hands, and stay six feet apart. And because workers sometimes share tools, everyone will need to wear work gloves, and not latex gloves, Bird explained.

This will ensure that someone’s “hand is not touching a tool that someone might have used without being sanitized,” she said.

Everyone coming to the site will be required to fill out a questionnaire asking them to self-identify with symptoms. Temperatures will be taken and anyone with a temperature of 100.4 or above will be sent home.

There will also be no shared food. Rather than the usual communal jug of water, individual water bottles will be distributed. Snacks at breaktime will be pre-packaged.

A good number of the organization’s older volunteers—those who help on building sites as well as those who work in the ReStore, a home improvement store located in Cromwell that raises money for the organization—have indicated that they’re not ready to come back to work, Bird explained.

“We sent out a volunteer survey back in April,” she said. “I would say that the majority of them, both in the ReStore and on the job site, are very cautious about coming back.

“However, on the flipside, businesses seem to be interested to get out on the job site,” she continued.

Weekdays are typically when individual volunteers will work on the site, while companies and corporations bring teams of employees on Saturdays.

“Throughout the summer we are booked with company groups” on Saturdays, Bird said.

Finding the Homeowners

“We had just finished getting all the applications in a week or so before everything closed down” due to the pandemic, Bird explained. “Our loan originator, underwriter, was able to go through the applications that came in and through the vetting process determined that there are two [qualified] applicants.”

While employment is a requirement for applicants for home ownership through HFH, neither candidate is working because of the pandemic.

“We paused the application process until both [are] able to begin working again,” Bird explained.

The organization determined that loss of work due to the pandemic should not disqualify the applicants, according to Bird.

“They’re normally employed,” she said. “The majority of my staff was unemployed, too, for more than two months because of the pandemic.”

Both applicants have jobs to go back to, she said.

Building on Faith

Middlesex HFH is planning an interfaith build from Oct. 17 to 25, giving diverse faith communities in the county a chance to build together. The organization is working with St. John’s Episcopal Church in Essex on the event, which is called Building on Faith.

“We’re inviting all the churches and houses of worship, the entire faith community, to come out and build with us during those days,” said Bird.

“We have churches that will come out and build,” she continued, “and they come out as a group on a Friday and they all build together,” but this nine-day period will provide congregations “an opportunity to build alongside people of different faiths.

“It’s about learning about other people and recognizing that people are people. Period. End of story,” she said. The aim is to provide “a place that people can come together and do something good for their community...and have an opportunity to have a conversation that’s outside of their usual faith conversation.”

A donor recently purchased a piece of property in Middlefield that HFH will renovate for a new owner, and Bird hopes that some of the work days will take place there.

“It will most definitely be at [the build in] Westbrook,” she said. “We’re hoping both.”