When the first two houses on Carpenter Circle are complete, no one will be able to say whether Katrina Smith or Tina Steele was the first to have a house on the new street.
Volunteers raised the first wall of each woman's house simultaneously Saturday, bringing the first-time homebuyers another step closer to becoming next-door neighbors.
Homeownership is a major change in each woman's life, but their homes also may mark a shift on East Athens' Burney Street - a time when families take back the neighborhood from drug peddlers and petty thieves.
"We all will be working, and we all have children. We all have to look out for each other," said Steele, 42, who works as a cook at Athens Regional Medical Center.
Habitat for Humanity planned Carpenter's Circle as a whole neighborhood, hoping the handful of families will stabilize the street as they add to the growing number of homeowners across the North Oconee River from downtown.
"We have targeted a specific area that has a high crime rate and low homeownership. The philosophy is that if you inject a certain number of homeowners, you change the dynamic of the area," said Spencer Frye, the executive director for the Athens Area Habitat for Humanity.
Click here to read the rest of the story from the Athens (GA) Banner-Herald.
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