CINCINNATI – Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity (www.cincinnatihabitat.org) is set to begin con­struc­tion on two homes in Col­lege Hill.  The Holzberger Fam­ily Human­i­tar­ian Foun­da­tion, Cross­roads Church, an anony­mous donor, and Xavier Uni­ver­sity are pro­vid­ing funds and vol­un­teers to help build and rehab the homes.  The dou­ble house con­struc­tion kick-off cer­e­mony will be at 8 a.m. on Sat­ur­day, July 10 at 1141 Home­side Ave. Speak­ers will include mem­bers of Cross­roads Church and the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Archi­tects Com­mit­tee on the Envi­ron­ment (AIA COTE). The com­mu­nity and mem­bers of the news media are wel­comed to attend.

The home at 1141 Home­side Ave. will be a new green home designed by AIA COTE. The design is the win­ner of an archi­tec­ture com­pe­ti­tion held last year with Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity, AIA COTE, and other Ohio Habi­tat affil­i­ates. Entries were judged on cost, abil­ity to build, and neigh­bor­hood con­text, in addi­tion to inte­gra­tion of envi­ron­men­tal strate­gies includ­ing impact on the site, water effi­ciency, energy use, mate­r­ial use and indoor envi­ron­men­tal qual­ity. The first place win­ners of each cat­e­gory are being built through­out the 2010 build sea­son in Cincin­nati, Cleve­land and Newark, Ohio, and the designs will be made avail­able to all 70 Habi­tat affil­i­ates in Ohio. An anony­mous donor will spon­sor this Cincin­nati Habi­tat build.

Cross­roads Church mem­bers will vol­un­teer on the AIA COTE home as well as the rehab located at 1189 Home­side Ave., just a few doors down. Over the past three years, Cross­roads vol­un­teers have invested more than 15,000 hours into the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of homes with Cincin­nati Habi­tat, and they expect hun­dreds of vol­un­teers to par­tic­i­pate over the course of this four-month build. Xavier Uni­ver­sity is once again pro­vid­ing their gen­er­ous sup­port through fund­ing and vol­un­teers for their sixth home being built with Cincin­nati Habitat.

The home at 1189 Home­side Ave. will belong to Mar­garet John­son and her two sons James, 9 and William, 3.  John­son and her hus­band came to the United States from Sierra Leone.  Last year, tragedy struck when her hus­band died sud­denly after a stroke leav­ing her to care for their two sons.

“I want Cincin­nati Habi­tat to know that pro­vid­ing a home for my chil­dren is a dream come true, and I wish their father was here to share this dream with us,” said John­son. “Ten years ago, we lived in tents in a refugee camp with lit­tle to no food or water. Buy­ing this home is the oppor­tu­nity of a life time for my fam­ily and will be the key to my sons’ futures.”

The home at 1141 Home­side Ave. will belong to Felita Jor­dan and her two daugh­ters, Chris­tine Cal­loway, 16 and Micah Cal­loway, 12.

“My chil­dren and I are a lov­ing fam­ily and we have been wait­ing all of our lives for an oppor­tu­nity like this to build and buy our own home,” said Jor­dan. “Our cur­rent apart­ment is very crowded and we need more space.  My fam­ily is so excited to have our own home. It is some­thing we have always wanted.”

“Thanks to the effort and sup­port of some great groups and a very gen­er­ous donor, two deserv­ing fam­i­lies will be one step closer to home own­er­ship this week­end,” said Marissa Woodly, Devel­op­ment Direc­tor, Cincin­nati Habi­tat. “We are also hon­ored to receive one of the first afford­able and envi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able house mod­els from the AIA COTE design con­test. We look for­ward to build­ing more ‘green’ Habi­tat houses in the Cincin­nati com­mu­nity in the future.”

To qual­ify for their Habi­tat homes, the Jor­dan and John­son fam­i­lies had to meet a vari­ety of cri­te­ria, includ­ing hous­ing need, abil­ity to pay a mort­gage and will­ing­ness to part­ner with Cincin­nati Habi­tat. Part­ner Fam­i­lies will work beside vol­un­teers from Cross­roads Church and Xavier Uni­ver­sity, invest­ing at least 500 hours of sweat equity into the con­struc­tion of their homes. Cincin­nati Habi­tat will sell the home to the fam­i­lies with a 0%, 20-year, interest-free mort­gage held by Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Humanity.

For more infor­ma­tion on Cincin­nati Habi­tat or to vol­un­teer, visit www.cincinnatihabitat.org, fol­low us on twit­ter http://twitter.com/CincyHabitat, our like us on Face­book http://www.facebook.com/CincinnatiHabitat.

About Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Humanity

Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity is a non-profit Chris­t­ian hous­ing min­istry that seeks to elim­i­nate sub­stan­dard hous­ing by build­ing and ren­o­vat­ing sim­ple, decent, afford­able homes to sell to low-income fam­i­lies in need. Cincin­nati Habi­tat works in equal part­ner­ship with fam­i­lies, vol­un­teers and donors build­ing a sense of com­mu­nity as well as afford­able hous­ing. Our part­ners include cor­po­ra­tions, churches, foun­da­tions, orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­ual donors who donate money, labor and mate­ri­als to fund and build our homes. Cincin­nati Habi­tat has built over 170 homes in neigh­bor­hoods that include Avon­dale, Clifton, Colum­bia Tus­cu­lum, Evanston, Har­ri­son, Hyde Park, Lin­coln Heights, Lock­land, Madis­onville, Mt. Auburn, Mt. Wash­ing­ton, North Fair­mount, North­side, Oak­ley, Over-the-Rhine, Price Hill, South Cum­minsville, South Fair­mount, Wal­nut Hills, West­wood and Win­ton Place, among oth­ers.  For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.cincinnatihabitat.org.

CINCINNATI — Mont­gomery Inn is kick­ing off the sum­mer of 2010 with ribs, ribs, and more ribs.  Come out and cel­e­brate Inde­pen­dence Day at one of Mont­gomery Inn’s four area loca­tions with a bot­tom­less plate of the restaurant’s leg­endary ribs and Saratoga chips.

“All You Can Eat” Ribs returns with all-you-can-eat World-Famous Mont­gomery Inn Ribs and Saratoga chips on July 2, 3, 4, and 5.  For $19.95 per per­son, fam­i­lies and friends can indulge in an infi­nite amount of their favorite Cincin­nati ribs over July 4^th weekend.

“Mont­gomery Inn is ready to cel­e­brate sum­mer by pro­vid­ing incred­i­ble value for our loyal cus­tomers across Ohio. We want to thank our fans by bring­ing back what was prob­a­bly the biggest restau­rant pro­mo­tion in the city, and our most pop­u­lar,” said Dean Gre­gory, Mont­gomery Inn Vice Pres­i­dent. “We have the great­est cus­tomers, and I am con­fi­dent we will sur­pass February’s rib totals.”

“All-You-Can-Eat” Ribs is avail­able at all Mont­gomery Inn loca­tions – in Old Mont­gomery (just north of Cincin­nati), in Fort Mitchell, on the Ohio River at the Boathouse restau­rant, and at its newest loca­tion in Dublin (north of Colum­bus). Mont­gomery Inn is open Mon­day through Thurs­day 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Fri­day and Sat­ur­day 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. (includ­ing on July 4), and Sun­day 3 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The “All You Can Eat” Ribs and Saratoga chips spe­cial is valid only July 2 — 5, 2010, for dine-in con­sump­tion only (no carry out orders and no doggy bags). All orders are per per­son (no sharing).

About Mont­gomery Inn

Founded by Ted Gre­gory in The Vil­lage of Mont­gomery in 1951, The Mont­gomery Inn and its “World-Famous Ribs” have become a prized jewel din­ing and enter­tain­ment estab­lish­ment for Cincin­nati for more than a half cen­tury. Her­alded by notable Cincin­na­tians, movie stars, and U.S. pres­i­dents, The Mont­gomery Inn treats cus­tomers to pre­mier din­ing expe­ri­ences in three Greater Cincin­nati loca­tions, its newest loca­tion in Dublin (Colum­bus), Ohio, in gro­cery stores through­out the Tris­tate and online at www.montgomeryinn.com.

CINCINNATI – Cham­pion Win­dow and Patio Room Com­pany (www.championfactorydirect.com) was approved on May 27 as one of 33 sup­pli­ers in The U.S. Depart­ment of Energy’s Highly Insu­lat­ing R-5 Win­dows and Low-E Storm Win­dows Vol­ume Pur­chase Pro­gram, part of a multi-year inte­grated strat­egy to trans­form the mar­ket for high-efficiency windows.

Accord­ing to the Depart­ment of Energy’s web­site, the new Vol­ume Pur­chase Pro­gram will facil­i­tate the broader deploy­ment of these win­dows by pair­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers with buy­ers look­ing to pur­chase large vol­umes of win­dows and by set­ting per­for­mance expec­ta­tions for energy effi­cient windows.

“Being involved in this pro­gram and know­ing that the require­ments to be at the top are con­stantly mov­ing, it gets everyone—Champion and other major win­dow companies—to push the enve­lope on what we can do to be more energy effi­cient,” said Danny Mickle, Champion’s Assis­tant Plant Man­ager in charge of Qual­ity Con­trol and Prod­uct Design.

The pro­gram includes both highly insu­lat­ing R-5 (U value 0.2) win­dows and low-E storm win­dows. When replac­ing win­dows, R-5 win­dows can reduce heat loss through the win­dow by 30% to 40% com­pared to a typ­i­cal energy effi­cient R-3 win­dow avail­able today. The sav­ings for R-5 win­dows are a sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment over prod­ucts avail­able today. With higher energy per­for­mance win­dows can become an even more cost-effective mea­sure for build­ing retrofits.

Win­dows that are part of the pro­gram must have National Fen­es­tra­tion Rat­ing Coun­cil (NFRC) ther­mal per­for­mance cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and min­i­mum struc­tural cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in accor­dance with the North Amer­i­can Fen­es­tra­tion Stan­dard (NAFS).

The Vol­ume Pur­chase Pro­gram received sig­nif­i­cant inter­est from man­u­fac­tur­ers, the build­ing indus­try, and other key indus­try stake­hold­ers. More than 50 eli­gi­ble pro­pos­als were sub­mit­ted from sup­pli­ers; over 30 sup­pli­ers meet­ing all pro­gram require­ments are cur­rently listed on the Depart­ment of Energy’s website.

Vol­ume pur­chasers of win­dows, includ­ing gov­ern­ment agen­cies, builders, energy retro­fitters, ren­o­va­tors, and weath­er­iza­tion providers, will gain online access to win­dow sell­ers whose prod­ucts are cer­ti­fied to meet the highly insu­lat­ing R-5 and low-E storm win­dows spec­i­fi­ca­tion. Buy­ers can then con­nect directly to the ven­dors’ web­sites to purchase.

To par­tic­i­pate or learn more, visit: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/windowsvolumepurchase/.

About Cham­pion Win­dow and Patio Room Com­pany, Inc.
Started in 1953, Cham­pion Win­dow and Patio Room Com­pany builds and installs more vinyl replace­ment win­dows, entry doors, patio rooms and sid­ing than any other com­pany in the United States. The com­pany oper­ates fac­to­ries in Cincin­nati, OH and Den­ver, CO. Champion’s con­trol over every aspect of man­u­fac­tur­ing, dis­tri­b­u­tion, instal­la­tion and ser­vic­ing, removes all cus­tomer con­cerns about who is respon­si­ble for their home improve­ment project. This makes choos­ing Cham­pion the eas­i­est deci­sion in home improve­ment. More infor­ma­tion about their prod­ucts and ser­vices is avail­able at www.championfactorydirect.com.

Fed­eral Neigh­bor­hood Sta­bi­liza­tion Pro­gram to fund both homes;

Com­mis­sioner Pep­per to speak

CINCINNATI – Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity (www.cincinnatihabitat.org) will begin con­struc­tion on two homes this Fri­day in Col­erain Town­ship.  Hamil­ton County and Col­erain Town­ship pro­vided the funds to rehab the two homes through an allo­ca­tion of fed­eral funds from the Depart­ment of Hous­ing and Urban Development’s Neigh­bor­hood Sta­bi­liza­tion Pro­gram (NSP).  The dou­ble house con­struc­tion kick-off cer­e­mony will begin at 1 p.m. on Fri­day, June 18, at 10334 Pip­pin Lane. Speak­ers will include Hamil­ton County Com­mis­sioner David Pep­per and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Col­erain Town­ship and Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity. The com­mu­nity and mem­bers of the news media are wel­comed to attend.

“This unique part­ner­ship is cre­at­ing a good home out of a fore­closed prop­erty,” said Com­mis­sioner Pep­per. “Not only does the fam­ily ben­e­fit, but there’s a rip­ple effect that ben­e­fits the sur­round­ing com­mu­nity and our entire county.”

Col­erain Town­ship has been sig­nif­i­cantly affected by the fore­clo­sure issue, with a fore­clo­sure rate sec­ond only to the City of Cincin­nati among Hamil­ton County Com­mu­ni­ties. Col­erain Town­ship intends to uti­lize the NSP funds to reme­di­ate these vacant, fore­closed prop­er­ties, thereby pro­mot­ing prop­erty val­ues and sta­bil­ity in these affected neigh­bor­hoods. Col­erain is a sub-recipient of the NSP funds allo­cated to Hamil­ton County.

“The Town­ship chose to part­ner with Cincin­nati Habi­tat because they have a great rep­u­ta­tion for pro­vid­ing qual­ity hous­ing for under­served pop­u­la­tions for a min­i­mal cost. Part­ner­ing with Habi­tat allows the Town­ship to max­i­mize its use of NSP funds. And, of course, the peo­ple at Habi­tat have been great to work with,” said Susan H. Roschke, Plan­ning & Zon­ing Admin­is­tra­tor, Col­erain Town­ship. “We are excited to see work begin on these two prop­er­ties, as a coop­er­a­tive effort of Col­erain Town­ship, Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity, and Hamil­ton County.”

The home at 10334 Pip­pin Lane will be built in part­ner­ship with the Alice Ward fam­ily.  Alice Ward is a sin­gle mother of four.  When asked to describe her fam­ily, Alice said, “My fam­ily and I are like most other families—very close and lov­ing.  We know how impor­tant it is to put fam­ily first. We are blessed in so many ways and try to be and do our very best at any­thing we do in life.  My kids are all honor roll stu­dents and all have a love for music, my daugh­ters play the flute and vio­lin, and my son the piano.”

About the oppor­tu­nity to build, or in this case rehab, and then buy her own home, Alice said, “Two of my chil­dren have dis­abil­i­ties that require that they have enough space to do phys­i­cal ther­apy exer­cises and store nec­es­sary equip­ment.  Cur­rently, we have a small apart­ment and have an urgent need for space.  It is such a bless­ing for me and my fam­ily to own our own home.”

The sec­ond home being rehabbed in Col­erain by Cincin­nati Habi­tat is located at 10293 Storm Ave. and will belong to the Cheghali and Fatiha Mah­moudi Fam­ily. Cheghali and Fatiha have two young sons. Cheghali is a taxi-cab driver.

“We wish to live in peace and have a won­der­ful life,” Cheghali said.  “We really like peo­ple, talk­ing with them and help­ing oth­ers.  Buy­ing a home was our num­ber one goal, but it wasn’t pos­si­ble because we couldn’t afford a mort­gage.  Through Habi­tat for Human­ity, our dream is becom­ing a real­ity.  We are glad and very excited to enjoy the expe­ri­ence of work­ing on our build site.  We are so tired from mov­ing place to place, and we need an area for our boys to play and more space as they grow up.  This is such a great oppor­tu­nity for our family.”

When each home is com­plete they will be sold to the Mah­moudi and Ward fam­i­lies with a 0%, 25-year, interest-free mort­gage payable to Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity.  Each fam­ily can expect their monthly mort­gage pay­ment to be approx­i­mately $400 (includ­ing clos­ing costs, taxes and insur­ance). To qual­ify for their Habi­tat homes, fam­i­lies have to meet a vari­ety of cri­te­ria, includ­ing hous­ing need, abil­ity to pay a mort­gage, and will­ing­ness to part­ner with Cincin­nati Habi­tat. Part­ner Fam­i­lies will work beside vol­un­teers from Hamil­ton County and Col­erain Town­ship, invest­ing at least 500 hours of sweat equity into the con­struc­tion of their homes.

The Neigh­bor­hood Sta­bi­liza­tion Pro­gram (NSP) was estab­lished for the pur­pose of sta­bi­liz­ing com­mu­ni­ties that have suf­fered from fore­clo­sures and aban­don­ment. Through the pur­chase and rede­vel­op­ment of fore­closed and aban­doned homes and res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties, the goal of the pro­gram is being real­ized. To learn more about Hamil­ton County’s use of NSP funds, visit http://www.hamiltoncountyohio.gov/commdev/v2/StabilizationProgram.asp.

For more infor­ma­tion about Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity or to vol­un­teer, visit www.cincinnatihabitat.org.

About Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Humanity

Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity is a non-profit Chris­t­ian hous­ing min­istry that seeks to elim­i­nate sub­stan­dard hous­ing by build­ing and ren­o­vat­ing sim­ple, decent, afford­able homes to sell to low-income fam­i­lies in need. Cincin­nati Habi­tat works in equal part­ner­ship with fam­i­lies, vol­un­teers and donors build­ing a sense of com­mu­nity as well as afford­able hous­ing. Our part­ners include cor­po­ra­tions, churches, foun­da­tions, orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­ual donors who donate money, labor and mate­ri­als to fund and build our homes. Cincin­nati Habi­tat has built over 170 homes in neigh­bor­hoods through­out Cincin­nati and Hamil­ton County. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.cincinnatihabitat.org.

Third year group has worked with Cincin­nati Habitat

CINCINNATI –This past week­end, 25 Bike & Build vol­un­teers made Cincin­nati a stop on their cross-country tour to help build homes for deserv­ing fam­i­lies and raise aware­ness for qual­ity afford­able hous­ing. Bike & Build vol­un­teers worked on three Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity homes in Avon­dale. Con­struc­tion on the homes began simul­ta­ne­ously in April.

Bike & Build is a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion that orga­nizes service-oriented cross-country cycling trips for young adults. Bike & Build’s mis­sion is to ben­e­fit afford­able hous­ing and empower young adults for a life­time of ser­vice and civic engage­ment through their cycling trips.

Since 2003, Bike & Build has con­tributed over $2 mil­lion to hous­ing groups to fund projects planned and exe­cuted by young adults. Through pre-arranged gifts, Bike & Build funds afford­able hous­ing projects exe­cuted by their par­tic­i­pants in com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try. In addi­tion to work­ing on hous­ing projects dur­ing their cross-country jour­ney, Bike & Build vol­un­teers are respon­si­ble for rais­ing $4,000 prior to their depar­ture to donate to student-led afford­able hous­ing projects across the country.

“We are so thank­ful to this fan­tas­tic group of vol­un­teers,” said Marissa Woodly, Devel­op­ment Direc­tor, Cincin­nati Habi­tat. “Bike & Build is a great orga­ni­za­tion that ben­e­fits hous­ing projects through­out the coun­try, and embod­ies Habitat’s mis­sion of elim­i­nat­ing sub­stan­dard hous­ing by build­ing sim­ple, decent, afford­able homes to sell to deserv­ing fam­i­lies in need, so we’re a nat­ural fit. This group did a fan­tas­tic job this past week­end, and we look for­ward to work­ing with them the next time they roll into Cincinnati.”

To learn more about Bike & Build visit http://www.bikeandbuild.org/cms/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/.

For more infor­ma­tion on Cincin­nati Habi­tat or to vol­un­teer, visit www.cincinnatihabitat.org.

About Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Humanity

Cincin­nati Habi­tat for Human­ity is a non-profit Chris­t­ian hous­ing min­istry that seeks to elim­i­nate sub­stan­dard hous­ing by build­ing and ren­o­vat­ing sim­ple, decent, afford­able homes to sell to low-income fam­i­lies in need. Cincin­nati Habi­tat works in equal part­ner­ship with fam­i­lies, vol­un­teers and donors build­ing a sense of com­mu­nity as well as afford­able hous­ing. Our part­ners include cor­po­ra­tions, churches, foun­da­tions, orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­ual donors who donate money, labor and mate­ri­als to fund and build our homes. Cincin­nati Habi­tat has built over 170 homes in neigh­bor­hoods that include Avon­dale, Clifton, Colum­bia Tus­cu­lum, Evanston, Har­ri­son, Hyde Park, Lin­coln Heights, Lock­land, Madis­onville, Mt. Auburn, Mt. Wash­ing­ton, North Fair­mount, North­side, Oak­ley, Over-the-Rhine, Price Hill, South Cum­minsville, South Fair­mount, Wal­nut Hills, West­wood and Win­ton Place, among oth­ers.  For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.cincinnatihabitat.org.