Habitat for Humanity of Archuleta County is celebrating 30 years of building homes with workforce families in Pagosa Springs this week. Paul Lehmann, who served as board president from 2018-2021, joined the then tiny affiliate as a volunteer in the summer of 2013.
At the time, Habitat Archuleta was completely run by volunteers and board members who donated their time. They didn’t have a single part-time or full-time employee, according to Paul. Rather than utilizing the USDA Rural Development mortgages and grant funding the affiliate uses today, Habitat Archuleta was completely funded by donations from the community.
“They were very dedicated people,” Paul said. “Extremely dedicated to Habitat. It was all about the mission of building affordable houses.”
When Paul began as a volunteer, the affiliate had just begun construction on House 24.
“That House 24 was still hand-to-mouth,” Paul said. “They funded the house through a construction loan from TBK Bank so that Habitat could start building the house. It was still a lot of donations.”
Paul said they “scrounged” up a lot of local materials, hired a part-time construction manager, and “really pieced it together.”
When the team of volunteers and part-time employees closed on House 25 the following year, Paul said, “It was a miracle that it ever happened. There were so many things that happened during that time…it was absolute chaos.”
He added that, due to a lack of full-time employees, he and other volunteers, particularly Larry Parks (who still volunteers almost every day on Habitat Archuleta’s build sites) and local volunteer Terry Pickett spent a “lot of time on House 25.”
After they closed on that particular home, the struggling affiliate was without an executive director or board president with extremely limited funds in the bank.
“We were in shambles, and we didn’t know how to proceed,” Paul said. “There were talks of closing the affiliate. Terry [Pickett] and I said ‘We’re not going to let that happen.’”
Paul had recently joined the board accompanied by Habitat Archuleta’s current board president, Barbara Swindlehurst. Terry began “grooming” Paul to take over as board president after Terry finished his tenure after closing House 26.
“We had a philosophy change,” Paul said. “We hired a new executive director, Valerie, and she opened up the USDA loan for us. House 26 was the first home that we used the USDA loans. That’s huge. Without that we would’ve had to close our doors.”
Paul added that the new loan program put pressure on the affiliate to meet deadlines and stick to planning and scheduling.
Valerie also opened up the Colorado Department of Housing (CDOH) grants.
“We started looking outside the community for support,” Paul said. “…Valerie started doing an advertising campaign for volunteers and started to open the doors up to say ‘Hey Habitat’s in town. This is what we can do for you.”
Paul also looked toward Habitat for Humanity International and started getting huge donations to keep the cost down on the affiliate’s homes.
“Some of the grants we got could be applied to the affiliate instead of entirely to the homes,” Paul said. “We were building cash up in the Habitat’s bank account.”
Paul explained that they were able to then hire full-time and part-time staff, which allowed them to grow the affiliate outside of just volunteers.
He said in 2019, the affiliate hired a new executive director, Lori Henricksen, who led the team until her retirement earlier this year. At the same time, Paul took over as president and declared a “philosophy change” at a board meeting.
“I said our main customers will always be the families,” he noted. “But we were going to start to run the affiliate as a true business because that was my background. And Lori understood that, and she and I ran with this.”
Paul said that he, Lori, Kate Crawford, and Barbara [Swindlehurst] went on a huge marketing campaign. Lori put together a presentation to get our name in the community.”
He added the team attended meetings at the Chamber of Commerce, Board of County Commissioners, PLPOA, and the Town of Pagosa.
Kate (who took over as board president after Paul’s tenure) also began community fundraising events, and Paul said, “I knew she would take off and run with it.”
“This is when things started happening,” Paul said. “We had the USDA loans in place, we were running ads for the families explaining we could do more than just Habitat loans, and Lori was huge in that.”
Debbie Pratt, who worked at the affiliate until late last year, tapped into the Care-a-Vanner program, which recruits people who travel the country in RVs to volunteer at various Habitat for Humanity builds.
The community began to see the affiliate as a viable organization again. They had families applying, full-time staff, a construction team, and regular volunteers. Paul was also instrumental in recruiting subcontractors who charge the affiliate for materials and generously donate their labor.
“These guys just lit up,” Paul said. “It made a great working relationship in the community with the contractors…the whole thing started snowballing.”
In 2020, the affiliate was hoping to make the leap into building a completely passive solar home, but COVID derailed the project. The team redirected, “took a breath,” and worked on two major home repairs. They diversified the board by adding an architect, town planner, and town official.
Then Paul got a phone call from a county commissioner.
“He handed me a spreadsheet of 150 tax lien properties in PLPOA, and said ‘Pick the ones you want, and we’ll do our best to turn them over to you.’”
Paul said the team, which included Lori, Kate, Barbara, and Paul, sat down together and chose the lots that would define the next five years.
“I want to reemphasize, it wasn’t just me. It was the organization including Lori and the rest of the board of directors,” Paul said. “I was the band director, but it was the band that did it.”
Due to waived permit fees from “everywhere we had a permit,” the cost of a home decreased by 30 percent. They also started negotiating prices of materials and locked those prices in to keep costs down.
In 2020, the affiliate was able to plan their “15 Homes in 5 Years” mission due to the donation from the Board of County Commissioners.
The affiliate went on to build two homes in the first year of their campaign and is now making great progress building three homes in Year 3 of the plan.
“The board of directors and Lori wanted to make a difference in the community,” Paul said. “Building one home a year was making a difference, but we wanted to make a splash.”
Paul also introduced energy efficiency into the plans for the 15 homes, which brought the affiliate to where it stands today, using high-efficiency state of the art appliances and solar panels to power the Habitat homes.
“The whole attitude in the community about Habitat in 2020 was completely different,” Paul said. “…That’s brought the affiliate into where you are today, and I’m very proud of the way you guys are going today.
“Keep letting the community know that we didn’t go away, we’re working our tails off and making the community better every day.”
Monica Nigon writes for Habitat Archuleta, the local affiliate of Habitat for Humanity.