ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Habitat: Capitalizing on a Team Effort

One aspect of Jimmy Carter’s extraordinary life as an ex-President has been on public view in the region in recent days. More than 100 members of Habitat for Humanity International, a Georgia-based housing ministry committed to building and renovating housing for low-income people, walked from Pasadena south to raise money and join forces with Carter and other workers building housing in Tijuana. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, flew by helicopter into Rancho Santa Margarita in Orange County on Wednesday for a ground-breaking ceremony at a site where 48 condominiums will be built by the group for people earning no more than $24,000 a year.

That income ceiling is a clue that Habitat for Humanity defies much of the conventional wisdom about the financing and purchasing of real estate. It succeeds by combining sweat equity, shrewd income and resale requirements and honest-to-goodness idealism. It’s a Christian group, but there is no denominational sell or religious commitment extracted. The organization cuts through the familiar obstacles to affordable housing, and it has a number of projects--though not anywhere near enough to meet the enormous need--within the pricey real-estate markets of Southern California.

Habitat’s methods stand both as a model and an inspiration, especially because of the ways it acquires parcels of land and building supplies. Cities with land available, agencies with red tape to cut, and developers and contractors with a streak of idealism in their bones all are enlisted. Homeowners put their shoulders to the wheel, contributing hours of construction work. They must fall within income limits and agree to resale restrictions designed wisely to keep the housing within reach of low-income people.

In Orange County, with some of the country’s most expensive housing, even assembling the project Carter visited might be the land-use equivalent of parting the waters. Yet, as if by wizardry, fees got waived, developers with an interest in homeless issues gave land, and subcontractors donated services and building materials. When the project needed an architect, an Irvine firm appeared.

Carter, who as President found malaise in the land in the late 1970s, seems to have tapped into a reservoir of goodwill in the America of the early 1990s. He is, of course, one worker among others, reminiscent of the stars who checked their egos at Quincy Jones’ door to sing, “We are the World.” That’s the appeal of this housing effort--everybody pitches in.