BREA : Ground Broken on Project to House Low-Income Families

A “pass the hammer” ceremony was held as Habitat for Humanity of Orange County broke ground here last weekend on its latest effort to help low-income families become homeowners.

Three single-family dwellings and a duplex will be built by Habitat volunteers in the 200 block of South Poplar Avenue. The site was donated by the Brea Redevelopment Agency.

“It will be set up pretty nicely,” said Barbara D’Amore, executive director of the Westminster-based charity. “There will be a common play area in the middle. It will be like their own little community.”

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian ministry dedicated to reducing poor housing conditions throughout the world. To apply for one of the houses in the program, a family of four must be earning less than $28,000 annually.

Each family that is having a house built will put in 600 hours of “sweat equity” in constructing the dwelling. Families will also make 1% down payments on their interest-free mortgages.

Since it began operations in 1988, the Orange County affiliate of Habitat for Humanity has built 57 homes. Another 27 dwellings, including the Brea units, are scheduled for construction. Worldwide, Habitat has built more than 30,000 homes.

Grading and foundation work will be completed on the Brea project in the next few months. But a frenzy of activity will begin in mid-June when about 400 volunteers build three of the homes in just one week as part of Habitat’s annual Jimmy Carter Work Project.

Named for the charity’s most famous volunteer, the project will involve the construction of 50 homes in Southern California. The main focus will be on South-Central Los Angeles, where 20 dwellings will be built the week of June 18.

Carter is expected to visit Los Angeles for the event, D’Amore said, and it is possible that he will visit Brea as well. The former President and his wife, Rosalynn, were in Orange County in 1990 when Habitat broke ground on a 48-unit condominium project in Rancho Santa Margarita.

D’Amore said that building a home in just one week is “pretty hard.”

“A logistical nightmare is what I’d call it,” she said. “But we’ve got a lot of experience doing it as an organization. We just work real hard.

“The city of Brea has been really good to us,” D’Amore added, “so that’s one of the reasons we selected them” for the Jimmy Carter Work Project.

This is the second joint venture between Brea and Habitat for Humanity. A four-unit condominium complex for low-income families was built in Brea in 1993 at Ash and Flower streets.