SANDPOINT — Blue Haven, a transitional home for homeless families, received a much-needed facelift this week.

About 30 Bike and Build riders from 18 different states pulled into Sandpoint Wednesday night. By Thursday morning they were painting porches and parking lot lines, remodeling a two-bedroom apartment and fixing up the playground equipment at Blue Haven.

"These guys are awesome," said Tamie Martinsen, program manager for Blue Haven. "They just jumped in and started working."

Bike and Build is a nonprofit that sponsors cross-country bike trips to benefit affordable housing, said member Megan Reilly. She said a big part of the mission is to get youth involved in community service projects and fundraising, so the target age for riders is 18 to 29. Everyone who rides also raises $4,500, which goes to affordable housing and helps fund the trip.

The projects taken on by Bike and Build across the country are required to involve affordable housing in one way or another. Reilly did some research of the area and discovered Blue Haven and decided to give them a call.

"I've been looking forward to this build the most, actually," Reilly said. "We work a lot with Habitat for Humanity, which is awesome, but so obvious. I tried to find builds that were a little bit more unique and centralized to the community."

There are eight Bike and Build routes that go from the East Coast to the West Coast. Reilly's team is the northern route, which is one of the two maiden voyages of Bike and Build.

"Our team is a little bit unique because we are a little bit older than the typical Bike and Build team," she said, adding that one person is still in college, but everyone else put their full-time jobs on hold to do the summer ride.

Reilly's group is about 3,700 miles into their trip, with about 400 left to go. Out of 16 builds across the country, Blue Haven is their second to last project before the season ends in a week.

The Bonner County Homeless Task Force is the parent nonprofit of Blue Haven. The task force was established in 1991, and Blue Haven opened in 1994. The other facility linked to the task force is Trestle Creek Transitional Housing in Sandpoint. Martinsen said between the two facilities, they can house up to 14 families and four single women at one time. The transitional housing served 130 individuals last year.

Martinsen said there is always a waiting list for the transitional homes. The average length of time families and individuals stay in transitional housing is 13 months, she said.

"We help them address what caused their homelessness and gain skills to move on to permanent housing," Martinsen said.

Last year, she said, 87 percent of the families and individuals who moved out of the homes moved into permanent housing.