{"id":276909,"date":"2026-05-19T17:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T17:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/276909\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T17:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T17:47:09","slug":"family-displaced-by-hurricane-milton-receives-new-storm-resistant-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/276909\/","title":{"rendered":"Family Displaced By Hurricane Milton Receives New Storm-resistant Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Eric, Donna Epps, Michelle Range, Ah\u2019Jeir and Richard Rogers. <\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Habitat Tampa Bay Hillsborough.<\/p>\n

After being displaced by Hurricane Milton, a Hillsborough County family has received the keys to a brand-new, storm-resistant Habitat for Humanity home, supported by funding from Verizon. This is the first home to be dedicated in the Windhorst Commons community, offering a powerful new beginning after the family lost nearly everything.<\/p>\n

Habitat for Humanity of Tampa Bay Hillsborough and leaders from Verizon celebrated the home dedication for Michelle Range, a club director for Boys & Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay. Severe flooding forced her and her two sons \u2014 Eric, 24, who has special needs, and Ah\u2019Jeir, 18 \u2014 to leave their Plant City home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis home represents stability, safety, and a fresh start for Michelle and her family after an incredibly difficult chapter,\u201d said Richard Rogers, chief development officer of Habitat for Humanity of Tampa Bay Hillsborough. \u201cWe are grateful for partners like Verizon who help us build homes, resilience and hope for families in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day began with Verizon volunteers landscaping the property, followed by a home dedication ceremony where Michelle Range received the keys to her new home, along with a quilt presentation and the family\u2019s first walkthrough of the finished home.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, here in Tampa, we launched our new Community Disaster Resilience Initiative to help communities prepare for, respond to and recover from natural disasters,\u201d said Donna Epps, Verizon chief responsible business officer. \u201cWe were moved by the Range family\u2019s experience, leading us to include her family\u2019s tragic story of loss in our launch event last July. Today is truly a full-circle moment as we welcome her family to a new home. We\u2019re proud to partner with Habitat for Humanity to support families like the Ranges with durable housing built to withstand future storms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Donna Epps, Ah\u2019Jeir, Michelle Range and Eric.
Photo courtesy of Habitat Tampa Bay Hillsborough.<\/p>\n

Through its comprehensive Community Disaster Resilience Initiative, Verizon provides preparedness resources and tools, enables access to innovative technologies and partners with like-minded organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity, to keep communities safe when the next storm hits.<\/p>\n

Like all Habitat homeowners, Michelle Range is a partner in the process, completing \u2018sweat equity\u2019 hours by building homes alongside volunteers and purchasing her home with an affordable mortgage that fits her family\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod is good, and together we are building my family\u2019s legacy one brick at a time,\u201d said Michelle Range. \u201cI\u2019m thankful to Habitat for being such a blessing to my family and so many others, and to Verizon for investing in families like mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Windhorst Commons is a 23-home Habitat for Humanity of Tampa Bay Hillsborough community designed to meet the growing need for affordable, disaster-resilient housing. The remaining homes are expected to be completed by early 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eric, Donna Epps, Michelle Range, Ah\u2019Jeir and Richard Rogers. Photo courtesy of Habitat Tampa Bay Hillsborough. After being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-276909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}