Breaking Ground : Former President Carter Praises Volunteer Project to Build 31 Homes in Watts

Two months before he becomes a volunteer carpenter for a week in Watts, former President Jimmy Carter was in Los Angeles on Tuesday, breaking ground for an ambitious project to swiftly construct 31 single-family homes that will be purchased by poor people.

First, in a Downtown hotel and then on Santa Ana Boulevard, Carter praised the work of the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity. The organization is so synonymous with the former President that its annual centerpiece event is named for him.

From June 18-24, the Jimmy Carter Work Project will build 20 of 31 homes planned for low-income residents on a stretch of vacant land on Santa Ana Boulevard between Mona Boulevard and Alameda Street. The new residents, who buy the homes at greatly reduced prices due to donated supplies and services, are required to work on the project and are prohibited from selling the houses for 20 years.

“We rich Americans sometimes feel we are superior . . . and people who are poor are somehow inferior--’If people were as intelligent as I am, they would have a house,’ ” Carter said to men and women in suits gathered for the Town Hall breakfast at the Sheraton Grande. “Working side by side, we find they are just as intelligent, just as ambitious as we are. . . . They are as deeply committed homeowners as we are.”

Both the former President and his wife, Rosalyn Carter, who was with him Tuesday, have worked on Habitat homes for the last 12 years, becoming the organization’s most high-profile supporters.

The nonprofit Georgia-based organization builds homes for low-income families using donated materials, financial contributions and a supervised army of volunteers. Income requirements make a family of four eligible if they make $16,000 to $24,000 a year.

One of the requirements for chosen homeowners is that they put in 500 hours of “sweat equity” on their own homes and other Habitat homes. During Habitat’s Jimmy Carter Work Project, held in a different city each year, the houses are built in a week.

“In almost every case, most of the homeowners don’t believe that five days later they’ll be living in a house,” Carter told the breakfast crowd. “They’re so proud of the achievement. This is something they built themselves. No one gave it to them.”

The Santa Ana Boulevard project is one of Habitat’s larger projects and certainly the largest in Watts. A Los Angeles-based chapter of Habitat has built eight homes scattered through Watts, Willowbrook and Lynwood.

The organization is generally praised for its work in this country and internationally. However, the Watts development has met with some community opposition since it was announced last December.

Neighbors in a nearby development of recently completed two-story townhomes objected to the planned design of the Habitat homes. Habitat officials responded by making some modifications to their plans.

“Everywhere we go, there’s a different environment, there are different hopes and dreams,” Carter said in reference to the opposition. “Sometimes we make mistakes. . . . I guarantee that no matter what you expect from this project, it’s going to be better than what you dreamed.”

Tuesday’s groundbreaking was filled only with cheering supporters, including Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, community activists and a group of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters who plan to work on the houses this summer.

One of the already chosen families made an appearance with Carter. Donna Broadnax, a 29-year-old single mother who lives in Watts’ Imperial Courts public housing project with her 11-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son, helped break ground on the site of her new home. She applied for a house over a year ago.

“I applied and I prayed and I fasted on it,” said Broadnax, a city Housing Authority employee. “If it weren’t for Habitat, I’d still be here” in public housing.

Habitat officials and volunteers describe their homes as modest but sturdy and attractive. The one-story homes on the Santa Ana Boulevard site will range from two to four bedrooms, the largest measuring 1,100 square feet. Since the organization was founded in Americus, Ga., in 1976, its leaders and volunteers have built nearly 40,000 homes--Carter said they will reach that number this summer--and have their construction operations down to a science.

“We build ‘em right,” Carter told his Watts audience, boasting that Habitat homes in Florida withstood the ravages of Hurricane Andrew. Echoing his words to the business community, he noted with a chuckle, “We don’t cut corners, we don’t bribe inspectors.”