Daliila Ahmed gritted her teeth as she power-drilled a screw into a wall.

"I am so happy," she said, hefting the drill expertly. "I have never built a house before."

Soon the 26-year-old hospital housekeeper will move in, resurrecting a foreclosed house in St. Paul's North End that was scheduled to be demolished.

She said her 2-year-old daughter and 18-year-old cousin will love the two-bedroom house after being crammed into an apartment as big as her future living room.

Ahmed can thank a change of heart by Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity.

The group is taking a new look at habitat -- and humanity -- with a shift away from building homes in the suburbs. Increasingly, Habitat is fixing up foreclosed homes in inner cities, or repairing community eyesores before they are foreclosed.

"Our supporters asked: Why are you still building where there are foreclosures to be dealt with?" said Habitat spokeswoman Sharon Rolenc.

The group also is changing one of its fundamental assumptions about how people fit into neighborhoods.

In the past, Habitat offered new houses to low-income families willing to work up to 500 hours building their own homes.

But increasingly, Habitat is moving families into foreclosed homes -- which take far less work. Habitat families rehabilitate the buildings but also work on other people's homes.

In this way, the new thinking goes, families can take pride in helping themselves and others, within a neighborhood.

"This makes more sense," said Bill Turner, 84, of Minnetonka, taking a break from installing a ceiling in Ahmed's house. "Habitat's calling is right here."

In recent years the group, with a $20 million annual budget, has been building about 50 new homes annually.

Only one foreclosed home was occupied in the year ending June 30, said Rolenc. But she expects 10 foreclosed homes -- almost all of them in St. Paul -- to be occupied or purchased next year.

In addition, Habitat is almost doubling its fix-up homes to 120 next year.

The program, called A Brush with Kindness, looks for destitute homeowners -- most often elderly people living alone. The group then offers to paint homes, replace siding or landscape neglected yards.

The results can be dramatic.

Bernice La Barre, 74, was thunderstruck when a bus from the Republican National Convention rolled up to her North End home in September -- and 40 cheerful Republicans swarmed out.

Under the direction of Habitat, they painted the prime coat on her house.

A week later, a bus from Metropolitan Life Insurance arrived.

"To me, they were the most beautiful people on the face of the earth," La Barre said.

The colors of the house were changed from clashing shades of pink to a pastel yellow and cream.

The 114-year-old house was also given new insulation.

"When I sit in my bedroom now, the drapes don't blow back and forth," La Barre said.

When the Habitat volunteers left, they presented her with a houseplant as a gift. "It put tears in my eyes," she said. "I felt like a VIP."

Said La Barre: "The neighbors can't get over how nice it looks. Other people will pick up on this and do the same."

That's exactly what Habitat is counting on. The group's new approach is aimed at renovating entire neighborhoods, not just scattered sites.

Sue Haigh, director of Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, said the group now seeks to clump projects together -- choosing to repaint a house next to a revitalized foreclosure.

"We are not putting a new homeowner on a block where nothing else is going to happen," Haigh said.

As a new savior of neighborhoods, Habitat joins other groups with similar goals.

"It's a great new partnership," said Mari Bongiovanni, director of the East Side Neighborhood Development Co. That group tries to help the Payne-Phalen neighborhood, which has 900 homes foreclosed or abandoned, one-third of St. Paul's total.

Ultimately, Habitat's concentration on the cities will pay off, said Bongiovanni. As gas prices rise and the price of homes drops in St. Paul, the lure of cheap, centrally located housing will attract suburban buyers, she said.

On Thursday, Ahmed's house on Western Avenue was buzzing with activity.

Two volunteers from AmeriCorps put up sheetrock along with members of Habitat's "Dakota Crew" -- a team of retired men who volunteer to work two days a week.

Habitat supervisor Eric Weatherman, who is also a lawyer, directed the work.

He applauded the new urban mission as more cost-effective. He said urban homes, with access to public transportation, are a better fit for Habitat beneficiaries like Ahmed, a refugee from the Ethiopian civil war.

He admired the drive and work ethic of Habitat families.

"Daliila is not afraid of working hard," he said, "and getting dirty."

Sure enough, Ahmed wiped dust from her face as she measured a piece of a future closet wall.

The correct length was marked by her sister, Fakiha, who escaped from Ethiopia to avoid a forced marriage at age 12. She now lives in Brooklyn Park.

For them, the Habitat home was the American dream brought to life.

"I love Minnesota. I wouldn't move -- I don't care if they gave me a million dollars," Fakiha said over the clatter of hammers and drills.

Bob Shaw can be reached at 651-228-5433.

HABITAT AT A GLANCE

To qualify for a home from Habitat for Humanity, a four-member family must have an income between $24,000 and $40,000.

Habitat households, which include many single parents, have an average income of $28,500. Most recipients are recent immigrants.

Applicants agree to work 300 to 500 hours, either on their own home or some other building.

"It is a brutal little program. It is no handout," said Eric Weatherman, a Habitat site supervisor. "Five hundred hours is a lot of weekends."

Habitat families also must take classes. "We go through how to make repairs, how to get along with neighbors, what tools you need, what a mortgage is," said Sue Haigh, director of Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity.

In exchange, the families get zero-percent 30-year mortgages from Habitat. The typical mortgage is about $130,000.

After the families move in, Habitat volunteers visit the home regularly to make sure the occupants are making mortgage payments and being good neighbors.

Copyright 2009 St. Paul Pioneer Press All Rights Reserved