Thursday was graduation day for 27 Charlotte families that recently completed a self-sufficiency program run by the Charlotte Housing Authority.

For some it meant the beginning of home ownership. For others it meant the completion of personal goals, such as getting out of debt, learning to build and maintain a budget, finding a better-paying job or earning a GED.

The event was held at the Carole A. Hoefener Community Services Center in uptown’s First Ward.

The program has been around in its current form since the mid 1990s, but this is the first year that Housing Authority officials have thrown a celebration – complete with a blue-and-white sheetcake -- that read “Congratulations Graduates.”

“We decided to do a ceremony because people in our program work really hard,” said Tomico Evans, who supervises the Family Self-Sufficiency Program.” After working five to seven years on accomplishing certain goal, especially homeownership and coming out of subsidized housing, we thought that should be recognized.”

No two families enter the program with the exact same goals, but all live in public housing or hold Section 8 vouchers. They normally have five years to complete the program, but families can get an additional two years under certain conditions.

Talathia Lawhorn needed just three years.

A former county employee, Lawhorn said her finances were rocked when she gave birth to twins and suddenly faced a $1,200-a-month daycare bill. She also had an estimated $6,000 in debt.

“I paid it all off,” she beamed Thursday evening. “Yes I did. Paid it all off in three years.”

She said she also found a higher-paying job at Queens University and last month closed on a three-bedroom house financed by a local bank.

“It’s a blessing to have a house for my kids where they can play in the backyard. It’s exciting,” she said.

Of the 27 graduates, 19 have bought their own homes, CHA officials said.

Diana Askew, a mother of three who works as a bank teller, moved out of subsidized housing nearly a year go. In all, she said, it took her about three and a half years to complete the self-sufficiency program.

“It was time for me to move,” she told Qcitymetro. “I was getting tired of the area and it was getting bad, and I had three girls to worry about. I wanted a house.”

Askew’s new home is a four-bedroom house built by Habitat for Humanity. Like all Habitat homeowners, she was required to help build the house, as well as help build a Habitat house for someone else.

Some other good things also have happened in her life, she said. This fall, one of her daughters began her second year at UNC Greensboro, and Askew got married in July.

Evans, the program supervisor, said the Housing Authority will track the families to see how they progress.

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