Howard Preserve Bellevue

First Project for Blaine County Affiliate

 If you were looking for the storybook Habitat for Humanity family, it could be Aby and Jesse Rinella, who bought their home in Bellevue this month. This was the first project completed under the recently formed Blaine County Habitat affiliate.

 “Everything came together at the time in our lives that we were in the worst possible financial position,” Jesse Rinella said. “It’s surreal,” his wife added.

Four years ago, the Rinellas seemed to be the one of the least likely families ever to need Habitat’s help. Aby Rinella grew up in Hailey. She returned to her hometown to teach at Hailey Elementary School after graduation from Boise State University. Her husband had a construction job.

They bought their 1,100-square foot “starter” home in Bellevue, and prepared for the birth of their first child, Taitym. After Taitym was born, Aby Rinella switched to full-time work for Young Life, a nonprofit that works with teens.

They expected to make home improvements and sell the house a few years later, making enough profit to buy a larger house and pay off student loans. That was the norm in 2007, they recalled.

Two years later the economic crisis hit. Jesse Rinella was laid off in December 2009. In early 2010 funding for Aby Rinella’s job was insufficient and she didn’t want to leave the organization in debt, so she, too, was out of work.

By the middle of 2010 they could no longer make house payments. The value of the home had dropped more than $100,000, meaning they could not even sell it for enough to pay off their debt.

 “We had never missed making a payment in our lives,” Aby Rinella said. “We had good credit. Our convictions are that you pay your bills. But Jesse had been out of work for more than a year, and we had gone through our savings.”

The mortgage company agreed to accept a short sale, and let the Rinellas remain in the home in the interim. He found a job in a Blaine County Sherriff’s Department, but it still wasn’t enough to pay the mortgage and other bills. 

Aby Rinella was pregnant with their second child, Colson, now 7 months. “We are strong believers in the Lord, and we prayed and prayed,” she said. “But it was very difficult.

“It’s a time when you want to be preparing the nursery for the new baby, but we didn’t even know where we would be. Taitym kept asking me why people were coming to our home and talking about living in her room. That made it even harder,” she recalled.

One day realtor Cindy Ward called to say some people from Habitat for Humanity had seen the house and wanted to talk.

The Rinellas didn’t know why. They were even not aware that Habitat had worked locally. But they agreed to meet.

One of the Habitat board members was Erin Buell, community outreach coordinator for St. Luke’s Center for Community Health and the instructor for the birthing class the Rinellas had taken when Taitym was born. Her presence was a welcome surprise. 

Habitat had heard about their plight. The board members were impressed with their volunteer work with Young Life and Calvary Bible Church, his job in public service, and her previous job as a teacher.

They suggested that Habitat buy the house, install a much-needed new roof and new carpet in a bedroom, and sell the house back to the Rinellas at a price they could afford. That’s exactly what happened, although it took almost a year to go through the process.

Local Habitat members earlier built one other home in the Wood River Valley as a committee of the Twin Falls affiliate. ARCH Community Housing Trust helped in that project by holding a lease on the land, insuring that the home will permanently benefit a local family.

"Hundreds of people in the local workforce commute daily from outside the county.  A survey of those commuters indicates that more than 70 percent of them would prefer to live in Blaine County if decent affordable housing were available,” said John T. Flattery, chairman of the Blaine County affiliate of Habitat for Humanity. “The challenge is to make it available on terms they can afford." 

Habitat sells homes to families for no profit, with a no-interest mortgage based on ability to pay. Monthly payments are used to build additional homes.

If the homeowner decides to sell the house, Habitat has the option to repurchase it for the initial purchase price. The buyer will receive equity from all of the mortgage payments made prior to the sale.  This also allows Habitat to keep the home in its inventory.

Habitat for Humanity International is an ecumenical Christian ministry. Since its founding in 1976, Habitat has built, rehabilitated, repaired or improved more than 400,000 houses worldwide, providing simple, decent and affordable shelter for more than two million people. It was ranked as the sixth largest homebuilder in the United States with 6,032 closings in 2010, according to Builder magazine’s annual survey.

For information about the local affiliate, call 726-0610 or send an email to office@hfhblaine.org.

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Jo Murray is a public relations consultant to the Blaine County affiliate of Habitat for Humanity.

J.B. Howard is pleased to announce that his son Mike Howard and his fiance Mary Johnson are to be married at the Howard Preserve in Bellevue, Idaho Saturday, September 25, 2010.

The Howard Preserve holds a special place in the heart of both Mike & Mary, and it seemed a natural fit for them to share such a special occasion with family and friends here in the Wood River Valley.

For those that may not know, the Howard Preserve was created in 2004 thanks to a partnership between the Howard family, Wood River Land Trust, the City of Bellevue, Friends of Howard, and many interested organizations and individuals. The Howard family had owned the parcel since 1972 and, in order to protect it in perpetuity and keep it as a natural preserve with public access, they approached Wood River Land Trust to facilitate a bargain sale with the City of Bellevue. Mike Howard owns and operates the Inn at Tres Pinos restaurant in Tres Pinos, CA. and helps organize and cook for the Howard Preserve Community Picnic that is held every year in September. This year the picnic will be held on Saturday, September 18, 2010.

Mike, Mary and the entire Howard family would like to give a big "Thank You" to all the individuals that work so hard to preserve & protect this property and others like it. They look forward to sharing this beautiful place and surrounding communities with family & friends.

The Howard Family