At the behest of her mother, she had taken over the payments on her childhood home — a 1920s bungalow on Adams Avenue — in 2015 and, eventually, she decided to make it her own. Coming out of the pandemic, she hired a contractor and secured a home equity line of credit to fund a full remodel.

This would be the place she and her daughters would come to call home.

By October 2022, after making several thousands of dollars in payments, her deal with the contractor had fallen apart. The work was left incomplete, the home was no longer in a livable state and her funds were depleted.

“Meanwhile, I’m still going over and mowing the lawn. I’m going over and shoveling when there’s snow, I’m still doing like all the maintenance things, still paying the water bill, even though there’s no water. … I’m still paying on homeowner’s insurance,” Fritz said.

What’s more, the home she and her family had been living in both prior to and during the remodel was falling apart. She also was going through a separation from her partner of nearly a decade.

Fritz describes having felt “hopeless” as the situation reached its boiling point.

A complaint against the contractor ultimately was filed with the Utah Department of Consumer Protection; however, Fritz’s greatest concern was simply securing a place for her and her girls to live. It was at this point that she contacted the local Habitat for Humanity.

“I just started reaching out to people. … I was honestly grasping at straws. I had no idea what I was doing, but I kind of sent them an email,” Fritz said.

It was around this time that Proctor Gallagher Institute consultant Fred Wagner was assisting Wendy Vinhage, then-director of Habitat for Humanity’s Weber-Davis chapter. Vinhage was putting together projects through Habitat’s “Brush with Kindness” program, through which low-income homeowners are able to get home repairs and address maintenance issues with the help of volunteers and donors.

“I had gone and I had gotten a database of all the people that had requested assistance,” Wagner said. “I told her I would volunteer. I would help her out with the executive part of it and start finding projects for us to do for the year.”

Fritz’s request was among those Wagner was charged with vetting. And, after meeting with her, he was compelled to get something going on her behalf in spite of major challenges.

“This was something so completely outside of their scope of work. But meeting her for five minutes, (I told her), ‘I will not leave you.’ Because I can feel the stress in her body.”

The task was great; the inside of the house was practically gutted. Fritz and her former partner had planned to update the framing, electrical, lighting, drywall, cabinets, countertops, bathrooms, flooring, soffit and fascia. After walking through the house, Wagner said it was apparent that what work had been done was not done correctly.

Despite the commitment to help, though, Fritz’s project got lost in the shuffle — and was almost scrapped entirely — amid organizational changes at Ogden’s Habitat chapter and Vinhage’s exit.

Eventually, though, the project was given new life after Ogden’s Habitat ReStore merged with the Brigham City-based Habitat For Humanity of Northern Utah. Having become aware of Fritz’s situation and the commitment that had been made to her, ReStore General Manager Matthew Farmer reactivated the project in May 2023.

“I was going through (Vinhage’s) notes and came across everything,” Farmer told the Standard-Examiner. “I called Fred and I said, ‘Fred, what’s going on with this?’ Because we made a commitment to help. … I want to make sure that we’re committed to it and we finish it all the way through.”

Wagner had innumerable conversations with organizations, individuals and builders — anyone who could help or connect him with others who might be able to pitch in. There were steps forward and back along the way but, in the end, he was able to find a contractor to take on the project in Spencer Stephens.

“The project really took off when Spencer and his wife, Megan, took over,” Wagner said. “They pretty much took over and got everything donated, like services and materials needed to complete this house. And we’re talking roof, insulation, HVAC. … Spencer and his guys came in and reframed the whole house.”

Many of Stephens’ employees donated their time during off hours as well, joining dozens of contributing individuals and organizations.

So, more than four years after she had begun remodeling the home, Fritz was presented with the keys to her “new” house just in time for Christmas. She and her girls finally were able to fully move in last month. Since then, the clouds have begun to part for Fritz.

“I have hope again, you know? Like, things are getting better and I couldn’t be more grateful,” she said.

The home’s completion is particularly meaningful for Fritz and her family given its connection to her father, who had been excited to see it finished before his passing in September.

“At one point, he looked at that house and he said, ‘I want to live here with my family. I want to raise my family here,'” Fritz said. “So, knowing that, it’s just that much more special.”

A piece of Fritz’s late father lives on alongside the family in their new home, too, in his old dog.

“My daughter started bawling (when she found out they were taking the dog). Like, she’s so happy that we have Brooke because that was my dad’s dog,” Fritz said. “He loved her, and then it’s just nice — we have a house now to actually have a dog.”

For Farmer, the effort to complete Fritz’s home serves as a prime example of what can happen when Ogdenites coalesce around a good cause.

“The community has come together on this house,” Farmer said. “I mean, we’ve got this list of people (who made donations). … Cabinets, sheetrock, plumbing, electric, glass, insulation, painting, tile, carpet, you know, all these different things that people — they donated everything. It just shows the spirit that Ogden actually has. It’s just a matter of people reaching out to them and saying, ‘Look, this person needs help.'”