"If we are not doing right by our families,

then we are not doing Habitat."

~ Habitat Colleague

It was with these wise words in mind that we recently decided to add a new staff position here at Habitat Cape Cod: Family Programs Manager. We are pleased to introduce Mary Ann Mills-Lassiter in this new role. Mary Ann will provide support and leadership for both of our family programs: Family Selection and Family Partnership. 

Mary Ann grew up in Buffalo, New York, and studied both psychology and Canadian Studies at SUNY Plattsburgh. She moved to Massachusetts in 1980 for a social work job, and has been a social worker ever since. Mary Ann, who lives in Sandwich, raised her two children here on Cape Cod. Her daughter, Katie, now lives in Olympia, Washington where she is a policy analyst with the Aquatics Division at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources. Her son, Andrew, is in his first year of graduate school at Columbia University, studying Urban Planning and Design.

Mary Ann has held many different social work jobs over the course of her career. Her first job, a specialized foster parent in a group home for teenagers who had been removed from the foster care system, required her to "learn a  lot very quickly." In another job, working with children with developmental delays and their families, she helped those families obtain a wide variety of needed services: getting housing, dealing with evictions, health insurance, and individualized education plans. Recently she's noticed a greater need than ever before. "Because of the economy, issues for families have multiplied ten times. There was a time when a family could get by on one income if they had to. Now, if you lose your job or one of your jobs, you're sunk."
 

Mary Ann liked the idea of working at Habitat for Humanity because she's seen the way Habitat transforms lives, both as a professional whose clients have benefited from a Habitat home, and as a volunteer at our Danvers Way construction site, where she and a team from Head Start helped out with sidewall shingling. She says that in the past her job was to help people get housing in an indirect way, "I helped them get on a list, but it's not nearly as satisfying as helping them get an actual house." She also looks forward to working with Habitat's volunteers. "The volunteer component is wonderful. It will be great to build long-term relationships with volunteers and it is meaningful for families to develop those relationships with volunteers."
 

HHCC is currently at a new stage of growth. Looking ahead, we see that we will be building more homes and serving more families. We added this new staff position anticipating this growth, realizing that we're about to reach a tipping point in the quantity of work that can continue without dedicated staff support. 
 

Vicki Goldsmith, HHCC Executive Director, says, "In my opinion, Family Selection and Family Partnership have been two exemplary volunteer-run programs of our local Habitat affiliate. It is important that we maintain and expand that strength as we build more homes, create more homeowner associations, run more pre-purchase education programs, step up our volume of home applications processed each year, and make our partnership support available - quite soon - to 100 Habitat homeowner families, a number that will continue to grow each year. We will continue to rely upon volunteer leaders, specialized volunteers, and volunteer teams in this area of work, as we do in faith relations, construction, resource development, and other areas where we have added staff support."

We are certain that Mary Ann will be a huge asset to our organization. Working alongside the volunteers in family services, we will now be able to better realize our mission of building homes, hope, lives, and community on Cape Cod - for even more families.