Some of the fee money collected by the county from property owners last week went back to the community to help build new homes for those who might not be able to afford them otherwise.

Commissioners Rich Caridi and Karl Wagner and Pike County Treasurer John Gilpin presented a $50,000 check to Mike Donlon of Pike County Habitat for Humanity at the county meeting on September 25.

Gilpin said the money, from the Affordable Housing Program, comes from a fee charged on each new mortgage and deed filed with the office of the recorder of deeds. “Most of these documents are about four pages and a $13 fee is collected,” Gilpin explained.

Donlon said Habitat, the volunteer program that works with the families who will get the new home to complete construction, finished a home for a family of seven in Pocono Mountain Estates. They are now working on their 20th house in Birchwood.

Donlon said house number 21 will be in Sunrise Lakes and will be for Ian Knox, who deals with reports, financial issues and grant preparations for the Pike County Department of Transportation.

According to a recent Hawley News-Eagle profile, Knox, who is himself a double leg amputee, takes a special interest in acquiring grant funding for public transportation, “especially for the elderly and handicapped.”

Donlon said Knox’s home will be the same size as other Habitat homes but will include a garage.

Donlon said Habitat lately helped another disabled person when volunteers installed a wheelchair ramp for a Greentown man who had been unable to leave his home after recently losing a leg.

In other business, the commissioners approved a resolution of “Intent to Participate and Approve an Application for a Grant” for “Local Share” funding aid, which comes from gaming revenues, in the development of the new courthouse addition.

In answering a question regarding opposition to the newly released addition plans, Commissioners’ chair Rich Caridi said he did not credit any “vocal opposition,” saying the only thing that matters is the Architectural Review Board, which is said to have received the plans favorably.

They also tabled bids for winter maintenance of several county roads and for food service providers at the correctional facility.