Vacant Lot Filled With Hope for 3 Families

Irma Garcia smiled as she gazed at a rubble-filled vacant lot at an intersection just south of City Hall.

Instead of mounds of dirt and tufts of weeds, she saw freshly painted walls, flowerpots and lots of roomy closets.

For Garcia, a single mother of five children, the lot at 2nd and Shelton streets represents something she has long dreamed of but never thought possible: It will soon be occupied by a home the family will own, after living for two years in a single room.

“It’s like a miracle,” Garcia said, pointing to a spot near the middle of the lot. “I never thought I would be able to actually own a home. But now it’s true.”

The joy of the Garcia family was shared by two other Santa Ana families who gathered Saturday to break ground on low-cost homes they will help build themselves and be able to move into within a year.

The housing--a two-story triplex--is a project of Habitat for Humanity and marks the group’s first Orange County enterprise.

Habitat is a nonprofit, nondenominational Christian housing ministry--its most famous advocate is former President Jimmy Carter--founded on the principle that the poor need “capital, not charity.”

Families chosen for the housing are selected on the basis of need, but they must be willing to contribute 1,000 hours of labor toward construction and make a $500 down payment.

Although the families must have a steady source of income, the projects are targeted toward low-income people who would otherwise have no means of buying a home, especially in an area like Orange County, where housing prices are among the highest in the nation.

“We believe housing is a matter of conscience,” said Joe Perring, president of the Orange County Habitat affiliate. “People of good conscience cannot tolerate our neighbors living in substandard conditions. We have to do something about that.”

The group is set to break ground this summer on a two-unit Anaheim complex and has had discussions with the cities of Fullerton and Brea about projects. It is also in the early stages of planning a 48-unit development at Rancho Santa Margarita in partnership with the Fieldstone Co., a Newport Beach-based residential builder.

Ken Karlstad, executive director of the local Habitat chapter, said he is encouraged by the support that is developing for the building projects.

“So many people in the county are affluent and have been blessed, but they are realizing that inadequate shelter is so near,” he said. “Habitat is a community-based response, a realization that we can all be a part of the solution.”

For the families of Irma Garcia, Salvador and Beatriz Ponce and Rudolfo and Antonia Perez, the ground breaking in Santa Ana marked the end of years of frustration caused by living in overcrowded, often dangerous conditions--endured because they were too poor to afford better.

The Garcia family, including Jorge, 18, Violeta, 16, twins Martin and Martina, 15, and Jose, 9, lives in a single room in a Santa Ana house that rents for $225 a month. The children sleep on the floor on blankets--there is no room for mattresses--and store their clothes in boxes.

On school days, the children form a line to wait their turn to use the one bathroom in the house, Martina said.

“Everything takes such a long time, and it’s so crowded,” she said. “I feel so thankful because we are going to have something we have never had.”

Irma Garcia, who works as a packager at an Irvine computer firm, said she felt as if she had won the lottery when she learned her family had been selected to participate in the Habitat project.

Salvador Ponce, 31, his wife, Beatriz, 24, son Emmanuel, 14 months and daughter Christina, 20 days, said they will not quite believe their good luck until they see their home actually being built.

Salvador Ponce, a maintenance worker for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, said he once helped to build a home in his native Mexico and is not daunted by the prospect.

“It will be a very special moment when we actually see it going up,” he said.

Rudolfo Perez, a custodian for the Holy Family Cathedral School in Orange, said he will jump up and down for joy on the day his family moves into its home.

The Perez family--Rudolfo, 50, his wife Antonia, 31, Fabiola, 13, Estela, 7, Rudolfo Jr., 5, and 1-year-old Esteven--has lived in a $525-a-month, one-bedroom Santa Ana apartment for two years. The family sleeps three each on two foldaway beds. The children spend many hours outside on the street because there is simply no room for them inside, Antonia Perez said.

For the Perezes, their new home will mean a safer environment for the children.

“It is very important for the kids,” Antonia Perez said through a sign language interpreter. She and Rudolfo have been deaf since birth. “It is not safe for them outside--there are drugs in the area. This will be so much better for them.”