Habitat for Humanity, Housing Authority Raise Walls for Affordable House in Riverside

Bishop Harrison Hale returned on Tuesday to the street he grew up on to offer a blessing during the wall-raising ceremony for the latest affordable home to break ground in Riverside.

Standing on the foundation of the future house on a parcel at the south end of Vail Avenue, he recalled what it had been like there.

“This place, we could never come here when I was a child,” he said. “There was a big wall up here, there was car parts up here, there was tires here. We were not allowed to come here when I was a child, but here I am, a grown man: look at the doors that opened up because of Habitat for Humanity and Southampton Housing Authority.”

Hale attended at the invitation of his nephew, Curtis Highsmith Jr., the executive director of the Town of Southampton Housing Authority, which has partnered with Habitat for Humanity of Long Island to build six affordable single-family houses in the hamlet. Two are already built and have been assigned to local families, and an application period is open until the end of February for homes that are under construction or will be soon.

Behind Hale as he spoke was the Galilee Church of God in Christ, where he preached his first sermon. In front of him, across the street, there used to be a basketball court.

“It produced some of the greatest basketball players in Riverhead High School,” Hale said of the court, adding, “We always beat Southampton.”

Children also played baseball at the end of the block. “This fence was a home run fence,” Hale said.

The house is rising on a property that Suffolk County seized after the previous owner defaulted on tax payments. The country transferred the property to Southampton Town under its 72-h program for providing affordable housing opportunities.

“The property values in the Town of Southampton continue to grow,” said Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, who also spoke at the wall-raising ceremony. “Despite the fact that across Long Island we’re starting to see COVID prices start to relax, here in Southampton it is still extraordinarily difficult for a family to be able to afford to get into a home.”

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman echoed that sentiment. “The very people that we need for our community to function are priced out of our community: the nurses, the school teachers, the bus drivers, the people who run the cash registers at the grocery stores that we depended upon during the pandemic,” he said. “Everybody’s priced out.”

He also spoke to the theme of the ceremony, “Share Your Love for the Community,” which was chosen because the event landed on Valentine’s Day.

“They say home is where the heart is, and today we get to all participate in creating a space for the heart on Valentine’s Day,” Schneiderman said.

“We at Habitat do what we do because we have the love of God in our hearts,” said Myrnissa Stone-Sumair, the director of community development and special projects for Habitat for Humanity of Long Island.

“It’s the fabric of Habitat that we come together and raise the wall,” she said. “It’s a symbol that some great work is about to start.”

For information on applying, visit habitatliny.org.