BY DAN HILDEBRAN
General manager
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS—An effort in Green Cove Springs that helps residents build their homes could be coming to the Lake Region.
Operation Lifeline is a U.S. Agriculture Department program that allows households with between $35,000 and $70,000 to build their own homes.
“They get to cut out the middleman,” Operation Lifeline Executive Director Erik Saks told county commissioners. “They’re basically only paying for the (materials) to build that house. We get a grant through USDA to support the overhead to make this happen.”
Saks said groups of houses are typically built together so that future neighbors work on each other’s homes.
“One of my favorite parts of this is that nobody gets a key to the house until everybody gets the key,” Saks said.
The executive director said that as he is working to build six homes in Green Cove Springs now, he has spoken with Commissioner Betsy Condon about bringing the program to the Lake Region.
Saks said one advantage Operation Lifeline has over other housing programs like Habitat for Humanity is that his program does not rely on volunteers.
“It’s the families that are doing this,” he said. “I have some of our volunteers because we have our military interns that we’re training in construction that we will be able to get out there to do some of that work. Also, they can rely on things like church groups and scouting groups.”
Saks said he hopes to break ground on the first group of six homes in Green Cove Springs in April.
