Shianne Gifford looked around the home that will soon be her family’s, that they helped paint and prepare, and she smiled. 

“I can see myself having family over,” she said. “It feels like a dream.”

Turning the dream of a young family owning a home in Cody into reality was cause for celebration Friday, as friends, family and members of Mountain Spirit Habitat for Humanity’s board and staff gathered inside the modular home on New Hope Drive.

Shianne, husband Nathan and son Helias, not yet 2, will own the home as of Nov. 21 when the loan closes. Shianne said it’s not the kind of place they could afford in Cody, they’ve been living in an apartment, without the help of Habitat. Thanks to the organization, they are able to put down just $500 and pay $899 per month for their mortgage, far below the estimated $1,825 per month with interest they would pay on the open market in a home appraised at $338,000. 

The family will pay roughly $225,000 and no interest as the loan is serviced through the Wyoming Community Development Authority. 

“This opportunity for the Gifford family couldn’t have come at a better time,” said Mountain Spirit Habitat director Nikki Hoellwarth . “I’ve worked with them for two years and they were the perfect family for us to choose.”

The family initially applied in 2020, but Covid delayed the process and they ended up having a modular home built in Nebraska and then taken to Cody to be placed and finished. 

Once it arrived Nathan, who works at Kincheloe Plumbing, helped set up the plumbing in his new home, and then both he and Shianne helped paint the house. By the time of the celebration they had already been able to move in bigger pieces of furniture, and reality had begun to settle in.

“We’re beyond excited,” Shianne said. “We couldn’t be happier.”