Lynn home part of neighborhood revamp

LYNN – On a recent and rainy Saturday morning, Frederick Otokunrin spent the afternoon installing soundproofing in what will be his future Lynn home.Otokunrin wasn’t the only volunteer working with Habitat for Humanity on the Grover Street project that has been going on for months and is expected to be finished by this summer. A lot of hands have come together to make this foreclosed property a three-family home in a neighborhood that has come a long way in recent years.”This is the last piece of the puzzle,” said Norm Cole of Lynn Housing Authority and Neighborhood Development (LHAND). “The neighborhood is transformed now. We tackled a tough one.”Cole said at one point there had been 40 families living in 20 units on the hill not far from where the KIPP Academy is located today. And overcrowding wasn’t the area’s most serious issue: “The city considered calling the DEA to handle the drug problem.”But now, he said, things are much better and safer. LHAND has helped rehab a number of properties in the area over the years, striving to eradicate the crime and drugs.The Grover Street house itself had been a known drug house, said Don Preston, president of Habitat for Humanity -? North Shore.Recently, Cole finalized a grant from LHAND to the North Shore Habitat to the tune of $100,000 to help finish the Grover Street home that Otokunrin, a social worker currently living in Peabody, will share with his family and two other families.Preston said the home will be special to those who live there.”We have one owner who will actually be reuniting his family here,” he said. “He had to split up his family before, but because of the space in this house, he’s in Nigeria now to bring his son back here.”The project has also received a great deal of help from former Lynn teacher for the deaf Stephanie Vanderbilt.Vanderbilt’s company, Coastal Windows and Exteriors, recently raised over $54,000 for the project and Vanderbilt has organized a number of groups to volunteer working on the project. In November, she donated turkey dinners to the three families that will be moving into the home.Vanderbilt is currently organizing a group of businesses owned by women with the goal of educating and involving women in home improvement. She hopes to get women more interested in working with tools, and is working with Preston on a “Womens’ Build” for Habitat, though it may not take place at the Grover Street site, Preston said.Everyone is eager to finish up the work on Grover Street, completing a years-long revitalization of the neighborhood. But for all the volunteering and donations and grants that have helped things along, the project hasn’t been without setbacks.”The weekend before Christmas someone broke in and stole our nail guns, saws and other tools,” Preston said. But the group quickly recovered, Preston said. Thanks to donations and his volunteers’ willingness to help, they were able to buy or borrow new equipment to keep working.Cole credited Preston and Habitat North Shore for driving the project forward. “Don pushed for this,” he said of LHAND’s $100,000 grant.Though the amount seems large, Preston said much of the work going into the home was actually being done at quite a savings.”A regular contractor doing the same job would probably be another $200,000,” he said.Otokunrin said he was excited to be working on the home, and even more so to be moving in when it’s finished.