Allan Appel Photo
“Sam” Sankoh receives the symbolic hammer from Habitat Construction Supervisor Steve Tarasiewicz. Habitat chief Bill Casey and new owner Florene Spann (center)
Alihaji “Sam” Sankoh first heard of New Haven and Joseph Cinque and the Amistad revolt as a school boy in his native Sierra Leone. He found asylum from his West African country’s civil war in Connecticut. In 1999 he pitched in to help build the replica of Amistad at Mystic Seaport in 1999.
A dozen years later he’s moving into the first home he’s ever owned — in New Haven’s Hill neighborhood, not far from the statue of Cinque at City Hall.
“It’s amazing … looking at history,” said Sankoh.
Sankoh paused in amazed at that turn of the wheel of fortune as he participated Saturday in the dedication of his new home at 878 Congress Ave.
The new Habitat homes.
It was one of four contiguous completed homes on Congress near the Boulevard —numbers 878 to 890 — that Habitat for Humanity of Greater New Heaven dedicated in a ceremony that drew 50 people .
As with all Habitat projects, the construction is done by volunteers and the owners like Sankoh, selected in a very competitive process, put in 400 hours of sweat-equity.
That was marked and celebrated by the giving of the symbolic hammer and Bible to each new homeowner. Pastor Nancy Leckerling gave Sankoh, who is Muslim, a copy of the Koran.
Sankoh with wife Adama Dumbaya and their 2-year-old daughter Fatu.
The joyous ceremony was framed by a somber prayer and moment of silence for the victims of the Newtown massacre.
“Today of all days we need the light of Jehova, Allah, and God,” said Leckerling.
Habitat, a Christian organization, works with families of all faiths. Click here for a story on Habitat’s first house for a local Tibetan/Buddhist family.
It was a red-letter moment not only for the new owners but for Habitat as well. The organization, which has built 89 homes since its founding in 1986, now marks 14 houses in the Hill, which it is focusing on helping to transform, said Executive Director Bill Casey.
Habitat has worked on three homes on Vernon, three on Sylvan, as well as these four on Congress. It has four more planned a little east on Congress at Downes Street.
Alex Rodriguez and daughter Amaris by their new carpeted steps.
This is only the second time this many adjacent houses were constructed, a project that makes it possible for the owners like Sankoh and Alex Rodriguez and his family to get to know each other as they pour cement and put on siding. In effect they become neighbors long before the homes are complete.
When Habitat built five homes on Rosette, that effort took six years to complete. The four on Congress went from purchase to completion in just nine months, said Casey. All the work was conducted by the largest crew of volunteers ever, nearly 1200, supervised by professional builders. The efficiency reflects the evolving skills of Habitat, said Casey.
Allyson Clark and Mary Hambor with the Interact Club, a service organization at Valley Regional High in Deep River. They helped Alex Rodriguez build his lattice-work and his fence.
Habitat bought the lots on Congress from the city and private owners, all for $65,000. Habitat sold each house to the owners for $95,000; Habitat maintains the mortgage at zero interest, which means monthly payments (not counting insurance) are about $300 a month, said Casey.
Casey described the lots when they were acquired as an abandoned mess, with hundreds of tires dumped in the rear. On them now rise four, three-bedroom, energy efficient homes, with one and a half bathrooms, cute front porches, and scallop-shell decorations on the facades beneath the peak. They are reminiscent of the turn-of-the-century homes that Habitat has restored in Newhallville.
Alex Rodriguez, who with his wife Edmarie Vendrell and daughter Amaris, will be Sankoh’s neighbor at 880, said he’s committed to help “keep crime away. You got to keep working together and maintain it.”
Casey said Habitat does not yet own the empty lot on Congress at Downes, but hopes to in the coming months so that construction can begin there in the spring.
Sam Sankoh said that when he moves from his one-bedroom West Haven apartment to his new home on Congress Avenue, he plans to display a souvenir chunk of wood that he has from his work on the Amistad replica.