Habitat For Humanity is one step closer to taking on its Drumheller project, to provide families with a home to call their own.

The Mail reported in its November 7 edition the Drumheller project was missing a key component: families for the duplex. At that point, there was only one eligible family who has gone through the process to become selected by the program to own their own home.

Since that time the organization took on an awareness campaign and now have six families. Louise Gagne, director of regional development for Habitat for Humanity says these applications will be evaluated and they hope to have two families to fill the planned duplex in North Drumheller.

  Gagne explains a driver for the Drumheller project was a donation of a parcel of land for a home.

“At the time I’m sure they would have done a housing needs assessment and my impression is the town did have a need,” she said. “What has transpired is a significant shift in the economic climate of the province that affected Drumheller.”

She said with the decline of the economy, it may have led to more vacancies, falling rent and more people were able to find affordable housing.

“So more people who needed our program or could have used it are in a better housing place, although it is still a rental,” she said. ‘ One of our criteria is for our family to demonstrate housing need, they would be spending more than 30 per cent of their income on housing or an unsafe situation.”

   She explains one case where they were working with a family who were eligible until one of the parents secured a full-time position.

  “Downside is they didn’t get to own a home with us, but the bright side is dad got a permanent job. All of these things transpire at a micro level and a macro level. It impacts the entire community and some changes impact families to make them more eligible or less eligible for us.”

While they have  built a larger pool of applications, Gagne says they are always taking applications.

“If people continue to apply, I’ll be in touch with them and go through our process and our criteria and getting to the point of making an application or not,” she said.

This puts the project one step closer.

“We have a little more fundraising to do and then we will have a spring groundbreaking. Our aspiration is to identify two families who would be great homeowners.”

For more information go to habitatsouthernab.ca./own-a-home

Next spring downtown will be filled with music with donated pianos for locals and visitors to belt out a tune.

Volunteer Don Boyer along with an inmate crew was busy this week picking up five pianos and an organ donated by area residents. These instruments will be tuned up, given a fresh coat of paint by professional artists and a couple will be set up in the downtown core to start. Anyone who wishes can sit down and share their musical talents.

This program has become popular in other jurisdictions. Calgary has had Street Pianos since 2012 and Edmonton has also installed the instruments, as has Kelowna.

  The program is part of a promotion and revitalization of the core, and it is supported by donations from JoAnne Cunningham, Brent Kendell, Cindy Poland, Perry Berry, Landon Bosch, and others.

To get them set up, volunteers are looking for someone with the ability to tune pianos. They are also looking for professional painters interested in finishing the pianos.

For more information contact Bob Sheddy at bob@2121.ca.