Lakeland Habitat for Humanity launches 'legacy' home program for seniors to help prevent homelessness

Lakeland nonprofit launches 'legacy' housing program

A Lakeland nonprofit housing organization is launching a first-of-a-kind program that aims to prevent senior residents from ending up on the streets. FOX 13's Carla Bayron reports.

LAKELAND, Fla. - A Lakeland nonprofit housing organization is launching a first-of-a-kind program that aims to prevent senior residents from ending up on the streets.

Big picture view:

Lakeland Habitat for Humanity's new legacy program offers to buy property from people losing their homes because of city code violations. 

Instead of the city just tearing the home down and the homeowner having nowhere else to go, the program will build the resident a brand-new house on the same spot, and in the same neighborhood, while also granting them life tenancy.

What they're saying:

"These are older people, and they've lived in these houses for generations, so not only are we not going to make a big impact on the way the community looks, but the bigger impact is we will prevent homelessness," Claire Twomey, the CEO of Lakeland Habitat for Humanity, said.

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Twomey says she saw a need for this program in the community and, as a Christian organization, she came up with the idea because it's the right and moral thing to do.

"The reason we call it 'legacy' is because, instead of their legacy of being homeless, they now have a legacy of when their house, when they pass, will go to somebody else in the same position," Twomey said.

A transitional home will be built on the empty lot at North Ohio Avenue where residents will stay temporarily while their new home is being built.

It's being paid for through a grant by Publix Charities.

What's next:

Twomey hopes construction will be completed within a few months or no later than early summer.