Homes of Their Own : Habitat for Humanity Gives 8 Families a Chance to Build Dreams

They bathe only twice a week because there is hardly any hot water in their phone booth-sized bathroom. They hack like lifelong smokers because of the dampness. And they squabble more than usual for a family of six because they sleep together in the same tiny bedroom.

But the Cardenas family’s luck is changing.

One of eight families chosen to occupy a Habitat for Humanity housing project in Pacoima, soon they will leave behind their $530-a-month Pacoima hovel for a spanking new townhouse. The project, which received 169 applications, recently received $70,000 worth of building materials donated by the lumber industry through Rebuild L.A., enabling all the families to take up residence by early summer instead of in stages.

“It’s like a dream,” said Juana Cardenas, 44, a housewife with four young children. “My husband works hard, but we never had hopes of bettering ourselves.”

The American dream is becoming a reality for the Cardenas clan and the other families because they fit the criteria established by the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit international group whose most famous volunteer is former President Jimmy Carter.

To be eligible for a no-interest loan to buy one of the townhouses, which go for $50,000 to $62,500, depending on their size, the families had to pledge to put in 500 hours of “sweat equity,” including 150 hours of labor on another family’s unit.

They also had to earn less than 50% of the county median income, which is $32,800 for a single person. The six Cardenas family members, for instance, get by on less than $27,200, which Juan Cardenas earns as a factory laborer.

They are not on welfare, nor are any of the other families selected for the program.

Like more than 10 million Americans, Juan Cardenas and the other breadwinners chosen to live in the project work full time but remain below the poverty level, which is about $14,000 for a family of four. About 12% of the full-time, year-round work force of 90 million Americans earned poverty-level wages or less last year, said Leonard Schneiderman, a professor of social welfare at UCLA.

“They’re the forgotten poor,” said Rachel Dunne, an unemployed geologist who helped found the local Habitat chapter.

To find the families, Habitat advertised last summer in newspapers throughout Los Angeles County and spread the word through churches and synagogues, said Sherry Weaver, a loan officer who was the co-chairwoman of the group’s family selection committee.

Although the group is an ecumenical Christian ministry, there were no religious criteria used in the selection process, in accordance with regulations set by the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, which loaned the project $312,000.

The group received applications from 169 families, each of which were interviewed in their homes by Habitat volunteers. Then came the hard part.

About 20 Habitat members, including schoolteachers, students and real estate agents, met in October for a marathon selection session. From 9 a.m. until 6 p.m., they campaigned on behalf of the families they had interviewed, finally voting for eight of their choice. The families with the most votes were selected.

“We yelled at each other, we laughed and we cried--it was grueling,” Weaver said. “There was a lot of pressure because we knew it meant a break in life for these families.”

Six of the families are Latino, one is African-American and the other is Anglo.

One recent Saturday, family members ranging in age from 5 to 49 were helping grade their home sites at the half-acre lot at 10906 Laurel Canyon Blvd., the first such Habitat project in the San Fernando Valley. They will mostly perform unskilled labor, digging ditches and helping erect the frame, while Habitat volunteers and a few hired helpers do the rest.

There was Imelda LaVoie, 46, a high school janitor who works from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. weekdays to support her four children. They now live in a public housing project in Boyle Heights.

“We’ll have more privacy here, and maybe I’ll get a job at the high school next door and be able to walk to work,” LaVoie said.

There also were the eight Alfaros, who emigrated from Peru about three years ago. The five boys sleep together in the living room of their two-bedroom Panorama City house, which they rent for $750 a month. Their monthly mortgage payment at the Habitat project will be about $385.

What will they do with the extra money?

“Less rice and beans,” said Eugenio Alfaro, 43, a policeman in Peru who earns $6 an hour as a cook here.

And the extra room?

“The boys will have more space, and, well, my husband and I will have a more intimate life because the walls will be thicker,” said Maria, 39, giggling and casting a loving glance at Eugenio.

To Juan Chaidez, 30, a factory worker who rents a dimly lit, unheated garage in Pacoima for $400 a month, the move means his two children have a better chance of making something of themselves without the physical discomforts.

“It gets so cold in here you can see your own breath,” Chaidez said. “This is a real blessing.”