Habitat for Humanity helps Helena families find affordable homes
Jenna Kavajecz said Habitat gave her a path out of instability, while 250 applicants wait for a program built to keep homes affordable for the long term.
For Jenna Kavajecz, a Habitat for Humanity home in East Helena meant more than a place to live. After foster care, domestic violence and repeated upheaval, she said the chance to own a home gave her a way to build a steadier future for her children.
Helena Area Habitat for Humanity does not hand out houses. Families qualify for the program, put in about 700 hours of sweat equity and work alongside other future homeowners and volunteers. Once the build group is finished and inspected, participants buy the home with a low-interest, income-based mortgage through a partnership with USDA Rural Development. If the family later sells, the house stays in the affordable-housing system and goes to another lower-income buyer instead of being absorbed into the speculative market.
That model comes as the Helena area has become dramatically harder to buy into. In November 2023, executive director Jacob Kuntz wrote that the average sales price of a home in the Helena area climbed from $280,000 in 2019 to more than $470,000 in 2023, a 68% jump in four years. Habitat has also said about 80% of Montanans cannot afford a home in their own state, a figure that helps explain why the affiliate’s waitlist has grown to around 250 applicants.
The need is larger than what Habitat can serve on its own. Helena Area Habitat says it has built 90 homes since 1992, and in 2021 it set a goal of building 30 homes each year by 2030. Right now, the affiliate says 10 homes are under active development. The three homes highlighted in the East Helena effort began in October and took about 10 months to complete, with more than 200 volunteers contributing roughly 1,000 hours of labor.
That work is part of a much bigger push in East Helena. In March 2025, Helena Area Habitat described Rose Hills as a planned 1,500-home neighborhood on 250 acres south of State Highway 282, with Phase 1 still in planning and ground-breaking targeted for 2025. At a July 2025 dedication for six East Helena homes, Kuntz said 19 children would live in that cul-de-sac and attend local schools, a reminder that each new house affects classrooms, neighborhoods and the city’s long-term housing supply. Habitat’s ReStore on Market Avenue also helps keep usable materials out of landfills while funding the housing program, extending the same affordability mission beyond the build site.
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