STAMBAUGH, Ky. (WSAZ) - Your home may be the biggest purchase most of us will make in our lifetimes.

But for many hard working, low-income families, especially those in deep rural areas, home ownership is a distant and often unreachable dream.

Now, there's a rural group, much like the city-based Habitat for Humanity, that provides that home buying link to turn renter into owner.

Linda Reffett never had a mortgage and never lived in a new home like the one she has now. She's spent her last 40 years in a deep hollow log cabin.

Linda's new home is one of 13 on this Johnson County site. Homes provided by LINKS, the low income housing coalition of Eastern Kentucky since 2000. With volunteer help and generous local bank financing, LINKS has built about 40 houses on rural plots in a five county area, providing homes to help honest struggling families help themselves with a decent place to live.

Social work student Arvella Wilson will soon move into this LINKS home. The flood victim and lifetime renter who now lives on a small disability check says she can't give enough thanks.

For mortgage financing, LINKS can not charge their clients more than 30 percent of their incomes and repayment plans can run up to 30 years.

The board chairman says the program has been incredibly successful in choosing clients who faithfully keep up their payments.