Habitat Gets High Marks for Tijuana Aid : Housing: Some volunteers helping Mexico’s poor are faulted for proselytizing, but not Habitat. It is also working on projects in Anaheim, Santa Ana and Rancho Santa Margarita.

Just a few months ago, Andres Lara Lozano and his family lived in a dirt-floor residence of scrap wood and plastic. Now the 38-year-old minibus driver owns a new two-bedroom, cinder-block dwelling that he proudly displays to a visitor.

The Laras--Andres, his wife and their two children--are among 26 families here who have obtained new homes in the past 18 months with the assistance of Habitat for Humanity, a Georgia-based nonprofit group that has spearheaded low-income home-building efforts in more than two dozen nations.

Habitat for Humanity’s activities are coordinated by local affiliates, one of which was started in Orange County two years ago. This month, the Orange County group was awarded a $100,000 grant from the James Irvine Foundation to help build homes for low-income residents in Anaheim and Santa Ana. The organization is also building 48 condominiums in Rancho Santa Margarita in what will be the largest project ever undertaken by Habitat for Humanity.

The Irvine Foundation also awarded $100,000 to Habitat for Humanity’s San Diego affiliate for use in its Tijuana project. Last month, former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, longtime Habitat supporters, visited Tijuana and spoke with Lara and other new homeowners. In June, the former First Couple plans to return and, along with volunteers, begin construction of more than 100 new homes in Tijuana and 10 in southeast San Diego.

Habitat is one of dozens of U.S.-based helping-hand brigades that are building houses and performing other charitable works in Tijuana. On any day, particularly during weekends, young, fair-haired volunteers from a range of groups can be seen throughout Tijuana’s ramshackle hillside neighborhoods, nailing planks, distributing clothing and dispensing medical care. The volunteers are particularly prevalent during the holiday season, especially just before Christmas.

However, only Habitat and a few others get good marks for their efforts. Other groups have been criticized for dictating their plans to Mexican beneficiaries, sometimes in arrogant fashion.

Also, critics say, the volunteers from some good-will groups foster a damaging dependence. Or, detractors say, the groups seeking entree into the neighborhoods often ally themselves mistakenly with political caciques, or bosses, expanding the power base of ward leaders seeking to line their own pockets.

“There are a wide spectrum of these groups,” noted Victor Clark Alfaro, a cultural anthropologist here who has studied the effects of outside assistance. “Some create divisions within the communities; others really do provide assistance. . . . They all have good intentions, but often they don’t understand the culture and try to impose their vision.”

Some groups have been criticized for their use of religion. Many of the organizations performing assistance work in Tijuana are representatives of U.S.-based evangelical sects that, in some cases, have linked their favors to membership in their churches, sometimes as a quid pro quo. Often, the groups are referred to in Tijuana as alleluias, reflecting their religious origins.

Proselytizing by the U.S. groups has drawn criticism from authorities of the Roman Catholic Church, the dominant religious institution in Mexico. The church here is openly concerned about the inroads made by evangelizing Protestant groups from north of the border. Some Catholic residents have also expressed resentment.

“I don’t think it’s fair that some people get houses just for joining a separate religion,” complained Juana Ramirez, a 34-year-old Catholic mother of seven who lives in a neighborhood known as the Eagle’s Nest, atop a hill along the U.S.-Mexico border in eastern Tijuana.

Habitat officials say that, in all of their work, they have been careful not to link their assistance to any kind of religious requirement. The group describes itself as an “ecumenical Christian” organization, but says it never makes any effort to convert or pressure anyone to join a church. Habitat receives no government money and relies solely on private donations, officials of the organization say. The Roman Catholic diocese of Tijuana has been openly supportive of Habitat’s efforts.

“We are unashamedly Christian,” said Ken Sauder, executive director of Habitat in the San Diego-Tijuana area. “But we’re not down there trying to proselytize and push one religion. When families move into a home, we give them a Bible and a key. . . . What we’re about is building communities. And, in my opinion, if you build communities, the church will take care of itself.”

Interviews with residents of the Tijuana neighborhood of Matamoros Sur, where Habitat has constructed a dozen homes, indicate that the organization has managed to build considerable support. Even activists who speak harshly of the tactics used by other U.S.-based assistance groups are complimentary when referring to the Habitat approach.

“They don’t practice paternalism,” said Urania Isis Nolasco, a community leader in Matamoros Sur, which is about 15 miles east of downtown, just south of the international boundary and not far from the booming developments of mostly foreign-owned assembly and manufacturing plants. “They don’t tell the people what to do. They work with the community. That is the important thing.”

The neighborhood itself is unusually well-organized by the standards of Tijuana, where so many communities are simply sprawling collections of squatters’ dwellings.

Residents, mostly migrants from deep in Mexico, “invaded” what was government land about three years ago, arriving as squatters. There is still no running water or electricity. Many residents have gained legal rights to their lots in the past two years. The pattern of “invasion” and “regularization” is a familiar one in Tijuana and other Mexican cities as once-rural Mexico continues to evolve into an increasingly urban nation.

In Matamoros Sur and elsewhere, Habitat representatives work with community groups in selecting potential homeowners. The organization builds only in areas where it has been invited, according to Habitat officials. Applicants must have legal possession of their land, must be needy and must be willing to work. They must also understand the organization’s self-help attitude, officials say.

Central to Habitat’s philosophy is the need for families to share in the physical labor of constructing their homes; they are not just to watch from the sidelines as U.S. volunteers build. Prospective homeowners are required to put in 300 to 500 hours of work during construction. The process is often referred to as “sweat equity.”

“This is not charity; people work for everything they get,” said Humberto Ramos, a Habitat official in Tijuana.

The organization provides expertise, supplemental labor and materials. The cost of a home in Tijuana is about $5,000. Homeowners must pay that amount back, usually in loans stretched out over 10 years or more. The repaid funds are plowed back into community projects.

In Orange County, Habitat for Humanity is scheduled to break ground Dec. 10 for its first project in Santa Ana, where four condominiums are to be built at 2nd and Shelton streets. In Anaheim, Habitat officials are awaiting final approval of plans to build two condominiums on Patt Street south of Julianna Park.

The Orange County affiliate’s most ambitious project is the one planned for Rancho Santa Margarita where the Fieldstone Co., a Newport Beach home builder, and the Santa Margarita Co. have teamed up to build a two-acre tract for low-income families. Construction is expected to begin next year on the project, which will allow needy Orange County residents to become homeowners in an area where condominiums sell for upwards of $150,000.