NBC29 | Dominga Murray
An Albemarle County family is getting a first look at their brand new home.
It’s part of a multi-million dollar project that has been years in the making, where families in Southwood’s community are moving from mobile homes to something more permanent.
Benjamin Madrid, the father of family, said: “We’re excited and have been waiting for this moment for a long time.”
CBS19 News | Garrett Whitton
The first new homes now stand at Southwood.
This is a big step in this project that's been years in the making, and the owners of the future mixed-income development hosted a grand opening of the first model home on Friday.
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville has been the nonprofit owner, developer, and property manager of Southwood since purchasing the mobile home park in 2007.
The model home is the site of a pilot program at Southwood.
The Daily Progress | Hawes Spencer
“We are very grateful to Habitat, Southwood, and God,” says 31-year-old Benjamin Madrid, whose family will soon become the first family to leap from a trailer to a townhouse at Southwood, a community getting redeveloped by the non-profit Habitat for Humanity.
The Daily Progress
The new model duplex home rests on ground that was once part of the aging Southwood trailer park in Albemarle County. Fresh paint and green grass signal a kind of phoenix. An era of modern construction rises to replace tightly packed mobile homes with fading paint, random additions and septic systems failing so badly that some must be emptied weekly.