Denver - Mayor John Hickenlooper recently joined representatives of the Denver Board of REALTORS® (DBR) and Habitat for Humanity at the home of Haji and Maka Adem-Salah in north Denver to celebrate the first anniversary of the family's move into a new home provided by Habitat for Humanity and DBR. A red Maple tree was planted in the back yard of the home to commemorate the anniversary.

The Adem-Salah family immigrated to the United States in 1993 from a refugee camp in Somalia. Haji Adem-Salah, a taxi driver and his wife, Maka, had moved numerous times since coming to Colorado and encountered difficulty finding affordable housing to rent for a family of nine. Maka says, "Having our own home has been a wonderful experience for us and for our children."

The Denver Board of REALTORS® raised nearly half the money needed to build the home and supplied much of the volunteer labor to do the building.