Nearly seven years after moving into the home they helped build alongside Habitat Greater Boston staff and volunteers, Stephen and Arlene are still amazed to be homeowners.

“We’re so happy,” Stephen says in a new video about their experience as a partner family. “Me and my wife, we always say, ‘Thank God for Habitat. Thank god for all the people who make it possible for us to own a house.”

Before partnering with Habitat Greater Boston, the couple was living in a cramped two-bedroom attic apartment and unable to find affordable options for a home of their own. Today, they live in a townhouse with plenty of room for their family. They have a permanent home among a close-knit group of neighbors.

“It means so much to us, owning our own home, and it’s really affordable,” Arlene says. “Habitat made it possible for us. We’re extremely happy for that.”

Smiling on the couch in their sunny living room, Stephen agrees.

“This program is real,” he says. “It’s helped a lot of people that I know, my neighbors and me.”