Upgrading the Neighborhood : La Habra Agency Helps Residents With Limited Resources Renovate Homes, Regain Community Pride

Alvina Hernandez has lived all of her life on the same little street in La Habra, in the heart of a poor neighborhood called El Campo, so named because that was the location where migrant citrus pickers pitched their tents during harvest season in the early 1920s.

Hernandez and her seven siblings were born on a little shack on 5th Avenue. Today, she lives with her sister and niece across the street in a home she inherited from her grandfather, for whom she cared during the last 23 years of his life.

Until recently, her home was a tiny, two-bedroom dilapidated house. Years ago as many as 10 people crowded into the home.

But through the assistance of Neighborhood Housing Services, a locally based, nonprofit agency set up to provide loans and advice to homeowners for improvements, Hernandez’s house has undergone major remodeling. It is now a spacious, three-bedroom home, complete with modern kitchen, carpeted living room and den--a middle-class dream for a woman born poor.

‘It’s Nice to Have All This Room’

Also, for the first time in her life, Hernandez, 48, has her own bedroom.

“All my life, I’ve shared a room with a sister or somebody. It’s nice to have all this room and not have to be crowded like we always were,” said Hernandez, one of 257 people who have been helped by Neighborhood Housing Services in four poor, mostly Latino neighborhoods in La Habra.

NHS, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, was the first such organization in Southern California and one of the first in the state. Santa Ana created a similar service in 1979.

And it has been a model: one state official said the success of La Habra Neighborhood Housing Services has spurred the development of similar neighborhood efforts elsewhere.

More than a dozen such organizations have since sprung up in the state and another 100 across the United States. The community-based groups have “helped change the environment” of decaying and crime-ridden neighborhoods despite initial neighborhood resistance in some cases, said Lydia Bundy, deputy director of the state Department of Housing and Community Development in Sacramento.

Since its inception, La Habra’s Neighborhood Housing Services has provided about $2.2 million in loans to help families improve their homes and in some cases build new ones, giving the previously decaying neighborhoods a new look--and new hope.

NHS, which gets its funds from private donations and city and federal grants, has allocated $500,000 for home improvements in El Campo alone during the last two years.

Hernandez, who now works as a microcircuit assembler with Hughes Aircraft, remembers the El Campo of four decades ago. Most of the small wooden or stucco houses were built for a few thousand dollars, and many were subsequently occupied by three generations of large families.

By the 1960s, the neighborhood began to decay. Crime rose, and young adults began to move out. And the homes--which were built on a knoll where orange pickers camped out in the 1920s and 1930s--deteriorated, many barely remaining on their foundations.

Hernandez’s home was one of them. But even with the prodding of Neighborhood Housing Services, she was reluctant to renovate.

Wanted to Avoid Debt

“At first, we were afraid because the house was paid for. I didn’t want to go into debt,” she said.

Finally, Hernandez and her sister, Victoria, relented and jointly obtained a $47,000 loan from the NHS at slightly less than 10% interest.

The improvements haven’t been confined to their home, said Alvina Hernandez. The entire neighborhood looks better, and the tranquility she enjoyed as a child has returned, she said.

“It is so much better now. We have sidewalks (put in by the city), and there aren’t so many old houses. We have something nice now, but we have to work harder to take care of what we have,” she said.

In addition to the El Campo neighborhood, La Habra’s Neighborhood Housing Services is working in the Guadalupe-Highlander central district and in two new neighborhoods recently added to the program--Grace-Pacific and Alta Vista.

The NHS board of directors is made up of city officials, representatives of lending institutions and neighborhood residents.

Real Community Effort

Antonio Valle, a schoolteacher and area resident who has been board president for the last three years, said the NHS has been a catalyst in coaxing residents to improve their homes and yards. That, he said, has given rise to a real community effort to attain a better quality of life in the old neighborhoods.

“NHS has been a tremendous influence and resource for the neighborhoods. People see the improvement, and then peer pressure sets in and people start upgrading their homes like their neighbors have done,” Valle said. “There’s a lot of pride in El Campo. You’ve got old ladies over there scratching to keep their yards and flowers looking nice.”

Lee Risner, La Habra’s city manager, was one of the founders of Neighborhood Housing Services. He said that when old neighborhoods on the south side of town were targeted for rehabilitation, the city decided it was best to allow the residents themselves to take responsibility for improving their homes.

“We had a problem with traditional neighborhoods, and they really needed upgrading,” he said. “It just made logical sense to try and conserve the housing that existed by improving it. That way we wouldn’t displace any of the residents.”

Risner conceded that the neighborhoods still need much improvement, but said real progress has been made in the last few years.

“By fostering NHS and the neighborhood concept, the residents are really doing the work for themselves. It has evolved into a very trusting relationship,” Risner said.

One reason for the success is that Neighborhood Housing Services has been able to make money available to the residents at low interest rates. It currently has another $500,000 on hand for investment in the neighborhoods.

“We have had zero loan losses. Not many banks or S&Ls; can say that,” Risner said. “These are loans that are generally considered non-bankable. But we can be very flexible on terms and make them fit people’s pocketbooks. Banks can’t do that.”

Risner added that the interest rates are usually based on what the borrower can afford. In a few instances, he said small interest-free loans were made to poor elderly residents to make needed home repairs.

Bundy of the state Department of Housing and Community Development said: “I am very partial to the La Habra NHS. They have been able to go into neighborhoods where there weren’t a great deal of resources, and have been able to organize the residents. They have helped them raise their standard of living.”

Mercury Savings & Loan Assn. of Huntington Beach has been involved in raising funds for NHS organizations in California since their inception a decade ago. William Shane, president of the lending institution, said the NHS concept has worked not only in La Habra but throughout the country.

“The La Habra NHS, in particular, has been very successful. The results can be seen with all their programs,” Shane said. “You can touch and feel those results, and that’s the best kind of organization.

But Glenn A. Hayes, executive director of La Habra Neighborhood Housing Services, said the task of rehabilitating the local neighborhoods has not always been easy. He said channels of communication had to be established before his organization could provide assistance to the residents. To that end, he recruited community leaders to help NHS reach people.

Linda Navarro Edwards, NHS board vice president, grew up in the Alta Vista neighborhood. Her parents still live there, and she is manager of a savings and loan in La Habra. Three years ago Hayes asked her to serve as an NHS conduit and help bridge the gap between the organization and wary neighborhood residents.

“It’s hard to go into an old neighborhood and develop any kind of bond,” Edwards said. “Those people had lived there for a long time, and they needed to learn to trust NHS.”

Hayes also said that NHS has relied on the residents for ideas on how to rehabilitate the neighborhoods.

“We organize community meetings and ask the experts what the problems are. And the experts are the residents themselves. They are the ones who know what they need,” he said.

Edwards added that the NHS philosophy has “created leaders within each neighborhood” who have organized residents for cleanup and painting parties and have evolved into active, articulate voices for their neighborhoods.

One such leader is Art Castillo, who lives in El Campo. He grew up in the neighborhood and moved to Whittier as a young man. In 1973, Castillo, now 47, inherited an old 700-square-foot home in the 700 block of 5th Avenue from his grandmother, and he returned to the neighborhood.

One day he noticed homes being improved in another neighborhood and learned that Neighborhood Housing Services was providing assistance. He inquired about help, and the NHS later loaned him $57,000 to build a new 1,700-foot three-bedroom house for his wife and two children on the same lot. He also remodeled the old house and now rents it to his sister-in-law.

Now Castillo, who has been honored with a home beautification award by the Chamber of Commerce, is El Campo’s representative to the NHS board of directors and an unabashed supporter.

“To me, this is the greatest thing that has happened,” he said. “Crime is down. Young families are moving back into the neighborhood. Everything is just so much better.”

Another former resident who returned is David Contreras, 31, who grew up in Alta Vista.

Alta Vista sits atop a large hill between Idaho and Walnut streets. There is only one entrance to the neighborhood, which is not visible from a block away, where upscale businesses dot the busy intersection of Beach Boulevard and Imperial Highway.

“A casual visitor would never end up in Alta Vista,” Hayes said.

But Contreras remembered a happy childhood in Alta Vista. He recently moved in with his father and decided to build a new home two doors down in a vacant lot he inherited from his mother.

Helped Secure Loan

NHS helped him secure a $63,000 loan at 9% interest from a local savings and loan to build a three-bedroom home. Because he already owned the land, $63,000 was all he needed for construction of the house.

Contreras, who works as a warehouseman, will make monthly payments of $507 when the house is completed in another month.

“I grew up happy here, and it’s good to be back among all the people I know. But I’m really glad that I could upgrade the neighborhood,” he said.

Valle, the Neighborhood Housing Services president, sees steady improvement in the neighborhoods and a rekindling of a long-lost community spirit. But he said some of the new or improved homes will still resemble “roses among thorns” until more projects are completed, since many houses need major improvement, and some abandoned lots collect nothing but trash.

“There has been a steady improvement, maybe not as much as we’d like,” he said. “But we’ve been able to do what is best as a whole for the neighborhoods and the city. Some of these people have never had nice homes before. Now they do.”

City Manager Risner agreed.

“I now see a lot of neighborhood pride,” he said. “Cities are going to change, no question about it. They either go downhill or uphill. With this program, the city goes uphill.”