Just about the only thing not wrong with LaKeitha Jones’ current house, she says, is her landlord.
“The area, it’s drug activity and crime,” she said, sitting in the shade of the Habitat for Humanity supply truck where she had been assigned to work. “I had eight chairs on my porch; somebody stole four and left me four. They stole my car out of my front yard.
“It was practically parked in my house,” said Jones, 35.
She is one of the 36 soon-to-be new owners of Habitat for Humanity houses. The three-bedroom, white-sided affair, now known as House No. 11, will be home to Jones, her 2-year-old daughter, Jada, and India JaMaurii, who is due in just a few months.
“The heating I’ve got is real old,” Jones said. The dry air aggravates Jada’s asthma, which is so severe that in the first year of her life, she was in the hospital every three months, Jones said.
Their current house is near the railroad tracks, she said, “and that drives both of us wacky.
“She says, ‘Mama, the train gets on your nerves? The train gets on my nerves, too, Mama.’”
But not for long, Jones mused Wednesday, as she rested where she had been assigned to light duty, out of the sun.
“We’re going to a place where we won’t have trains no more,” she said, her identification card dangling from a gold chain. “People won’t be stealing from us.”
Jones works for MAT Industries, near Jacksonville, where she hand-stuffs pillows. The pay is lower than her old job at the Cleburne County Jail, and her $350 a month rent is a struggle.
The monthly mortgage payments on the new house, on a slight hill near a cul-de-sac and backed by woods, will be under $225.
“I’d have some central heat and air that shouldn’t aggravate her (Jada’s) asthma,” Jones said. “The baby won’t have to grow up being in the midst of all that.”
In April, Jones was laid off from MA, but the layoff turned into a blessing because it meant she could work at the Habitat office and fulfill the work requirement for her house.
By Friday, Jones will have invested 375 hours, or the equivalent of about 10 workweeks. She is supposed to return to MAT in July.
She already has big plans for her house.
“One word to describe it is awesome,” Jones said of the Habitat experience. “Awesome and unbelievable.”
She is excited about decorating her home in white and blue, and especially looking forward to putting bedrooms together for her daughters.
Growing up, her parents owned their own home, Jones said. Now, she can follow in their footsteps.
“New house, new baby, new life,” she said. “A new beginning, period.”
