Plenty to Be Thankful For

Payson family finds place to call home

Payson, Utah -- Being home for the holidays has new meaning for the Hayes family.

Gaylene and Tom Hayes and their two children are celebrating their first holiday season as participants in the American dream --home ownership, she said.

The family moved into its first home after investing nine months of sweat equity in a program designed to help low-income families become homeowners, said Brad Bishop, director of Rural Housing Development. The program is called Mutual Self-Help Housing.

On Oct. 20, the family moved into a new, three-bedroom, one-bath home with a full, unfinished basement for future expansion.

"Without this program, we would not have a house," Gaylene said. "It was a blessing."

In addition to being thankful for a new baby and a new home, the family is grateful a number of accidents weren't life-threatening.

"Tom was hurt many times while we were building," she said. "He was holding boards together and someone else was shooting (the automatic nail gun) and they shot through his finger."

Fortunately, the nail did not hit bone and Tom was able to recover quickly.

"But then, two or three weeks later, Tom was up on a ladder framing a garage wall when another nail hit him. He had coveralls on that night, thank goodness, because the nail went through the zipper and he was shot near the heart, but it only broke the skin."

About three weeks after that, a more serious tragedy struck.

"He was framing in the bay window," Gaylene said. "Another woman was using the nail gun about 20 feet away and she shot and it hit the wood, but the gun had double shot and the second nail went through the air and hit Tom in the neck."

At first, Tom thought he had been hit by a rock.

"He was joking about it all the way into surgery," she said.

Doctors determined the nail had nicked Tom's carotid artery. He spent three days in the hospital and today has a 3-inch scar.

"When that happened I began to think about what would happen if Tom didn't make it," she said. "We're thankful we all survived this."

Despite nine months of constant work and time away from their children, Gaylene said she would recommend the program to others.

"This is an awesome opportunity," she said. "There was no other way we could do this. It builds self-confidence, it builds character."

"The program assists a lot of families that aren't able to qualify for mortgages," Bishop said. "The program's been very successful. We've done 13 completed homes this year and broke ground last week on another seven."

Families are required to carry personal insurance in case of accident, he said, and a building supervisor holds safety meetings with the families on a regular basis.

Gaylene said the family's new home means more since the family members participated in its construction. The family had to attend five meetings with Housing Development officials, along with six other families.

"My daughter asked me 'Mom, what wall did you put up?' and I was proud to point out to her, 'I did that one and that one, and Dad did that one and that one,' " Gaylene said.

Gaylene also did the stonework on the front of her home while she was pregnant. Tom works as a maintenance man at a senior care center.

"We did all the framing," she said. "We did the roofing from the tar paper up. All the finish work was done by us. We did the windows, doors and hardware. My husband even hung the cabinetry.

"My husband kept saying he wanted to do the finish work, so I did the stone work, with the help of the group."

Roof trusses, drywalling, electrical and cement work were all done by subcontractors.

Ultimately, working as a group saved the family about $20,000. Those interested in the Mutual Self-Help Housing program can call 375-2205.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1, Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 2001.

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