Hearing impaired family gets special Habitat for Humanity home

Hearing impaired family gets special Habitat for Humanity home

January 27, 2005

By TEARSA SMITH
6 News Anchor/Reporter

OAK RIDGE (WATE) -- Thursday night is the first in a new home for an Oak Ridge family. But the Carvers' don't have the usual home built by Habitat for Humanity. This one is designed for their special needs.

Three of the five members of the Carver family can't hear so Habitat for Humanity made certain that in the case of an emergency, everyone would be alerted.

Unlike many other homes, there are smoke detectors in each room at the Carvers'. The detectors also have a special feature, flashing lights.

Each room has one of the special detectors. If there's a fire, the detector will alert the three Carvers who can't hear with a flashing light. For those who can hear, the detectors make a loud noise.

Throughout the home, there's no carpeting so the family can sense the vibrations in the floors.

And Mary Carver asked that all the bedrooms are on the same floor so if there's an emergency, the family can get out together.

"Most places do put in things like that in for the deaf but it makes it special because we don't have to put it in," Mary says. "They put it in for us so that's very special to us."

More sets of lighted alarms will be added in the home. One will be for the telephone system. The other will be for the door bell. Each has its own rhythm so the family will know what to answer.

The smoke detectors flash their lights in a different rhythm than any of the other alarms.

The Carvers' home is between two other Habitat homes specially designed for the family's needs.

Habitat's director says the organization has also built several homes for people with physical handicaps or other special needs.