CALDWELL — Home ownership had always been a dream for Mallory Tangen, but during years of unstable living conditions, it seemed an impossibly lofty goal.
“I got involved with drugs and alcohol, and I developed some substance abuse issues,” Tangen, who was raised in the Treasure Valley, said of her young adulthood. “I started dating a man who had the same issues, and we spent the first year of our relationship without housing.”
Tangen, now 33, alternated between a series of rundown motels and a friend’s garage with a space heater that year. All this she recalled to a crowd gathered under a rain tent next to the house that, with the help of a partnership between nonprofit First Story and builder Hayden Homes, she calls her own as of Wednesday.
It is a milestone that would have been unthinkable to her just six years ago, when she and her boyfriend decided to get sober, get married and move to Washington state to be closer to his family. They rented an apartment but, despite Tangen’s trying over the years, never pursued home ownership together.
“Our marriage was in a really tough spot, and eventually I was told with really short notice that he wasn’t going to renew our rental. I had a really short time to figure out where I was going to live,” she said. “Eventually, my husband filed for divorce. While I was waiting for it to be finalized, I found a house a couple hours outside of Boise that I started the process of purchasing.”
But this was to be another false lead. Interest rates were rising and Tangen’s husband, she said, would not cooperate with paperwork that would enable her to buy the home before the divorce was granted.
“Once it was finalized, I couldn’t afford a house anymore. I was priced out,” she said. “It was like two of the dreams that I had for my life had died at the same time.”
Then came First Story. The nonprofit, founded by and partnered with Pacific Northwest builder Hayden Homes, assists first-time buyers by providing them with a zero-down payment, zero-interest 30-year mortgage on a freshly-built home in a Hayden community.
Participants also must meet criteria like making less than 80% of their area’s median income. Tangen’s 1,150-square-foot home is the 118th that the First Story-Hayden partnership has built.
A wall-raising celebration for Tangen’s home, located in Caldwell’s new Shadow Glen subdivision, took place in mid-June and, with construction complete four months later, she was gifted symbolic and real keys to the house that she would move into later that evening.
The dedication ceremony, as it’s called, was attended by Shadow Glen neighborhood manager Kenna Hanses and Caldwell Mayor Jarom Wagoner.
“People always ask me what’s so great about being mayor. Things like this, where I get to be a part of the community giving back to those people that are so deserving,” Wagoner told Tangen in a congratulatory speech.
Tangen’s 4-year-old nephew will live with her part-time. His favorite part of the house, she said, will be having a backyard to run around in. Her own will be the stability that it will give her to pursue her dreams of a new life.
“Having a garden would be great, in the yard,” she said. “I’m thinking of going back to nursing school and continuing that education.”
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