Habitat for Humanity Breaking New Ground : After a False Start, Group Begins First Project on Eastside

After building 30 homes from the West Adams district to Watts, Habitat for Humanity broke ground Friday on its first project on the Eastside.

The volunteer home-building group expects to complete four homes on South Dickerson Avenue by the end of January as part of a long-term commitment to an area that has long suffered from overcrowding and dilapidated housing.

The inauguration came more than two years after the group scrapped its first building attempt in East Los Angeles because of problems with soil stability, grading and drainage.

For the four low-income families who were selected for the homes in 1993, it was well worth the wait.

“I want to start working because finally we’ll be able to say we’re moving, we have a house,” said an ebullient Dolores Navarrete. She will move into one of the homes with her husband, Mario, and two children, Mario Jr., 9, and Yesenia, 8.

To put it mildly, the Navarretes won’t miss their tiny stucco house on South Williamson Avenue.

No love will be lost for the garage converted to a room that was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. No sadness over leaving the rickety kitchen that vibrated so violently when the washing machine ran that they had to bolt down a cabinet to keep it from tipping over. No pining for the gouged floor and torn carpet, scarred by years of rough traffic.

“We feel better and more secure now,” said Mario Navarrete, who was laid off last year from the Orange County warehouse job he had held for 18 years. The Navarrete children sleep on daybeds in the tiny living room and use the former garage as a playroom. Mario and Dolores sleep on a double bed crowded into a room between the garage and living room.

Not only will everyone have their own room in the new house, but the family will have a real garage.

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As if this dream needed to get any more improbable, the Navarretes probably will pay substantially less per month in the new house than they have paid in rent. Habitat will sell them the home for a small down payment plus 500 hours of “sweat equity” construction work, and grant an interest-free mortgage that should come to less than $400 per month. The Navarretes pay $665 monthly for their current home.

Waiting has not been easy for the Navarretes.

“My husband got disillusioned for a while and we thought about moving to another state,” Dolores Navarrete said. “I listened to him say, ‘Let’s go somewhere else.’ I felt it very deeply. I said: ‘Don’t be disillusioned. Let’s not miss this opportunity. It’s worth waiting.’ It’s like winning the lottery, being one in a million.”

Navarrete held on, starting courses in auto mechanics and obtaining his American citizenship in the meantime. His wife likewise started the citizenship process.

The lure of productive labor and better living brought both of them from Mexico in the 1970s. While the prospect of a well-paying job may have faded, the couple’s view of the American dream remains vibrant.

“You just can’t believe it,” said Dolores Navarrete. “It’s a dream come true. At times, I have emotions I can’t even describe. I can’t say how I feel.”

Since establishing its Los Angeles branch in 1991, Habitat has built 30 houses, most of them in south and central Los Angeles. Its largest project was this summer’s “blitz build” of 21 homes in Willowbrook and Watts.

To fund and build the East Los Angeles project, Habitat brought together two churches, a synagogue, the Los Angeles County government and two fast-food restaurants.

The group hopes to launch more projects on the Eastside, although it has encountered trouble finding adequate sites, spokeswoman Melody McCormick said. “It’s tough to find land there, believe it or not,” McCormick said.

The task of choosing among the many needy families also proved difficult, said architect and former Habitat board member Juan Aceytuno.

“They’re the ones who work the factories, who work the cafeteria food lines,” Aceytuno said. “Home ownership gives them that added incentive and edge and upgrades their standard of living. They’re already talking about which college to send their kids to.”

Each home will have about 1,100 square feet of living space, with three bedrooms, and sell for about $75,000, according to Aceytuno. With payments spread over 20 years, “it typically works out to less than what most people are paying for an apartment,” he said.

Those economic implications are by no means lost on families like the Navarretes.

“The thing is it’ll be ours,” said Mario Navarrete. “[On Williamson Avenue] we were throwing our money away.”