Skepticism Diminishes as New Habitat Homes Rise in Tijuana : Volunteers: Unusual building materials are being tried for the first time as the group puts together the low-cost homes.

Three years ago, Adan Huesca Paz, a poor construction worker residing in the city of Puebla, joined the exodus of his countrymen heading to the north.

But, frustrated after being arrested by U.S. immigration authorities, Huesca decided to settle in Tijuana and attempt to capitalize on the possibilities of a fast-growing city that is a boom town by Mexican standards.

His wife and seven children eventually joined him in a squatter’s dwelling on the city’s eastern edge. While much has been written about Mexican emigration to the United States, Huesca and his family are indicative of the often-parallel but less-discussed migration to Tijuana and other Mexican border cities where tourism, international trade and foreign-owned assembly plants have created a huge job pool.

This week, the 42-year-old Huesca, a construction laborer by trade, finds himself in the unusual position of building his new home alongside co-workers who include former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn.

The Huesca family is among 100 who have been selected to receive new, low-cost homes being built as part of the Milagro en la Frontera-- or Miracle on the Border--project sponsored by Habitat for Humanity, the Georgia-based self-help group closely identified with the former President.

“I guess it’s just coincidence that he (Carter) happens to be working on my home,” Huesca said Monday, after he, the Carters and other volunteers had raised the walls and started work on the roof, windows and doors. “The President said a few words to me, but his Spanish is limited, like my English. But he seems like a good man.”

The five-day Tijuana-San Diego effort--volunteers are also slated to build seven houses in San Diego’s Encanto neighborhood--is the 14-year-old organization’s most concentrated, “blitz-building” undertaking to date, officials said. The Habitat group, which provides low-cost dwellings for the needy, has sponsored projects in more than 600 communities in 31 countries.

This week, about 1,100 volunteer from throughout North America, and a number from Europe, are living in a tent city on the edge of the poor Tijuana neighborhood where the new homes are being constructed. The Carters, like others, are sleeping in a two-person dome tent, using portable toilets, eating three daily meals in the communal mess halls, and living the no-frills work-camp life that they have shared in seven other Habitat projects.

The former President, looking lean in cotton shirt, jeans and sneakers, said the current project on the international border, along with its quick pace, has lent the entire effort a special meaning.

“This is by far the most interesting, by far the most challenging, and by far the most gratifying project,” Carter said Monday during a news conference in front of the future Huesca family home.

The former President then responded in halting Spanish to a Mexican journalist’s query about the purpose. “The objective is to construct comfortable and adequate housing in this community,” said Carter, who also fielded questions during the day about topics ranging from peace prospects in the Middle East to the state of the Mexican economy.

The simple homes being built in Tijuana are different from anything that Habitat has ever constructed. Builders are utilizing singular methods and materials--walls are made of 2-inch-thick slabs of lightweight, plastic foam. During the construction process, workers encase the foam in steel wire mesh. The structure is then covered with concrete. A Tijuana company, Grupo Muzquiz, provided the materials at cost. The two-bedroom houses are about 34 feet by 20 1/2 feet in size.

Because of the unusual building methods, Habitat officials have nicknamed the project “Coffee Cups and Coat Hangers.” The several-acre building site is now a tableau of white foam, metal mesh and wood rafters, constantly being traversed by volunteers and future residents toting tools, along with journalists lugging cameras and notebooks.

The hope voiced by Carter and others is that the unusual technique will provide a quick and low-cost alternative in poor areas, particularly in Third World regions where building materials are scarce. However, to many area residents, the process remains suspect, despite assurances by Habitat officials who say the materials have been tested.

“When I first saw it, I didn’t think it would hold,” said Adan Huesca, who was among the initial skeptics. “But now I can see it is strong. I’m not worried.”

In many ways, Huesca and his family are emblematic of the kind of migrant whose presence has bloated the population of Tijuana and other Mexican cities in recent years, further straining already thinly stretched services and creating severe housing shortages.