Michelle Francesca Thomas, Homeowner Services Coordinator, AmeriCorps Member
AmeriCorps connects individuals and organizations together to address challenges in our communities. Over 270,000 AmeriCorps members volunteer each year across the nation. Habitat for Humanity partners with AmeriCorps to serve in vital roles to increase Habitat’s ability to build homes and engage communities. The experience a volunteer gets from participating in AmeriCorps is life-changing and provide transferable skills for future employment.
Habitat MontDelco has had the privilege of having our very own AmeriCorps member this year, Michelle Thomas. She has been serving as our AmeriCorps Homeowner Service Coordinator since the beginning of November. In her first five months with us, she has continued to build relationships with our neighborhood revitalization partners, helped welcome the four new families for our Hatfield homes and ensured we have more accessible applications and processes moving forward.
Michelle decided to switch gears during the pandemic to focus on serving her community. Michelle grew up in New Jersey and lived in Manhattan, New York, as a producer/assistant director for seven years. She always had a passion to serve her community, “it was always second nature for me,” Michelle said, but it was not until she moved back in with her mom in New Jersey during the pandemic that she allowed herself to reimage her life post-pandemic and where she wanted to be in the future.
Living in New York, Michelle noticed and became more aware of lack of resources available for the underserved. Michelle said, “New York is a very populated area. There’s a lot of food insecurity and homelessness. More people flock to cities because there’s more assistance in those areas but unfortunately the number of resources available doesn’t always meet the need and people can fall through the cracks.” Her main focus has been on helping fight against food insecurity, helping to ensure everyone has equal access to food but it wasn’t until the pandemic that her focus shifted to housing security and ensuring everyone has a decent place to call home. Michelle realized that there were more people losing their jobs and Michelle said, “as a Black woman, I saw that the pandemic exacerbated the disparities in Black and Brown and other underserved communities that were there prior to the pandemic” and that made her feel helpless. Michelle went on and said,
“My attention turned towards housing insecurity because renters were facing many new difficult chain reactions. If renters can’t pay their rent, landlords and property owners can’t pay the bank or mortgage holder, which can lead to foreclosures and evictions. Not only were low-income individuals being affected by the high rent but the day to day, average person was having trouble making ends meet.”
Like many others, the pandemic allowed Michelle to take a step back and pivot in a new direction. Michelle originally applied to another Habitat affiliate for AmeriCorps but after not being accepted for the position, she heard about the Homeowner/Family Service position with Habitat MontDelco. She was intrigued to learn how the application process worked to buying a new home with Habitat. She was excited to learn new skills to be able to take with her as she continued forward in her career. She was hired in November of 2021 and will serve with us until September of 2022.
Michelle’s favorite part, so far, with Habitat MontDelco was making the announcement to the new homeowners for the four Hatfield homes. She saw first-hand the impact this announcement made in each of the family’s lives and how this was going to change their lives forever. She also enjoyed participating and helping lead the Almost Home, financial education class because she said, “it is so beneficial, the more education you have, the better you can prepare yourself for whatever next level you want to attain in life.” The accessibility to these classes, being virtual has significantly helped this program grow over the past year. Michelle realizes how intertwined all these problems (housing insecurity, lack of education, food insecurity) go hand in hand. She believes education is a way to be more equitable.
We are lucky to have Michelle as part of our team and we are looking forward to having her continue her service year with us until September.
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