Amid Tampa Bay’s Affordable Housing Shortage, Home Dedication Highlights Local Solutions Changing Families’ Lives
TAMPA, FL (September 15, 2025) – Lashundranette Sanders has spent years renting a crowded, termite-ridden house where her three children shared a single bedroom, temperatures inside often rivaled the Florida heat outside, and police were sometimes at her door warning of gunfire in the neighborhood.
Despite working full time at an insurance company to support her family, finding safe, affordable housing has been a struggle. All that changes Tuesday when Lashundranette and her family officially get the keys to their newly built Habitat for Humanity of Tampa Bay Hillsborough home in East Tampa. Volunteers, community supporters, and Habitat leaders will be on hand for the home’s dedication celebration.
Habitat houses like the one the Sanders family will call home are not free. A family invests hundreds of “sweat equity” hours working on home construction and at Habitat events, and they get a home with a mortgage designed to fit their family’s budget.
Lashundranette says she’s dreamed of providing stability and security for her three children for as long as she can remember. “Home means mine, ours, us,” she said.
About Habitat for Humanity of Tampa Bay Hillsborough
Habitat for Humanity of Tampa Bay Hillsborough builds and renovates homes in partnership with people in need of decent, affordable housing, and has worked with local homeowners and the community on more than 650 homes since 1987. Habitat affiliates around the world have helped more than 62 million people build or improve the places they call home.