Habitat for Humanity builds homes for families that can't afford them.

Now the organization has found a way to get the families into the homes sooner.

Iraida Carvhal has watched more homes than she can count go into foreclosure in her northwest Cape Coral neighborhood.

"A lot of people got caught in homes that were highly priced and you know a lot of bad loans," said Carvhal.

The house diagonal from her's was empty for over a year, but now she finally has some new neighbors thanks to Habitat for Humanity.

"The Habitat for Humanity, we didn't know much about it until we saw the ceremony going on," she said.

Habitat for Humanity bought this house.

Habitat is a non-profit organization that helps low-income families with affordable housing.

Volunteers usually build Habitat homes from scratch, but when the boom went bust,

"A couple years ago we're at the height of you know, the mortgage mania, and today we're in mortgage melt down," said Habitat's Trisha Goins.

Goins, with Lee County's Habitat for Humanity, says the organization started thinking outside the four walls.

"Pieces of property out there homes that are sitting vacant or even partially done that we could purchase at a much more affordable rate than to build them.," she explained.

Trisha says by purchasing foreclosed and vacant homes, the organization not only helps the habitat family, it also helps revitalize the neighborhood and stimulate the economy.

"That's going to help the seller get that home, you know, off of their records and it's also going to help that family whose going to be moving in there," Goins said.

Building homes is still the number one priority for Habitat, and families who move into homes that Habitat purchased still have to put in 500 sweat equity hours.