Home, at Last : Family Dream Built by 250 Volunteers, Plus 500 Hours of Sweat Equity

Debbie Schrader toured the new home, soon to be hers, with an air of satisfaction.

The cabinets, stove and sink were all donated by different organizations but fit nicely together, she pointed out. The living room, master bedroom, the bedroom for her twin daughters, Candice and Miranda, and another for her eldest daughter, Lisa, have been freshly painted. The beige carpets will be laid in the next few days.

But it’s the deck that Schrader is most proud of.

“I always save the deck for last,” she said, walking out onto a large redwood platform overlooking Conejo Creek.

At a ceremony Sunday, Schrader and her husband, Mitch, will become owners of the three-bedroom, two-bath home, the first built by Habitat for Humanity in the Conejo Valley. The 1,100-square-foot house was constructed with the help of nearly 250 volunteers on land donated by the city. A large percentage of the building materials were donated by local individuals and corporations.

The Schraders, who currently live in a three-bedroom, publicly subsidized apartment in Thousand Oaks, have dreamed of owning a home for years.

“We entered every lottery for subsidized housing that came along,” Debbie Schrader said. In September 1994, the couple’s application with Habitat for Humanity was accepted.

Since then, the family has put in 500 hours of sweat equity as their down payment. The couple--Mitch works in the receiving department at the Bugle Boy clothing firm in Simi Valley; Debbie is a school crossing guard for the city of Thousand Oaks--will pay off an additional $60,000 no-interest loan for the Beall Street home in $500 monthly payments.

That’s not bad for Thousand Oaks, where the median price of a home is about $273,000.

A similar deal will be closed this weekend in Camarillo, where Van and Lan Do will become owners of their own 1,100-square-foot home on Magnolia Street. The Dos, who immigrated to the United States from Vietnam two years ago to be near a relative, are expected to move into their new home, along with their children--Peter, Lisa and Kelly--and Van Do’s grandfather, Dai Do.

The two newly completed homes are the fourth and fifth to be built by Habitat for Humanity in Ventura County in the last three years, said Gerry Olsen, public relations chair for the nonprofit organization’s Ventura County chapter. The group has also refurbished more than 160 homes of low-income owners since the Northridge earthquake.

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Worldwide, Habitat for Humanity, which is based in Americus, Ga., has built more than 40,000 homes providing shelter to more than 100,000 people since 1976.

In the future, the group hopes to speed up its building effort in Ventura County, Olsen said.

“We are lighting a candle against a major problem,” Olsen said about the lack of affordable housing. “It is one of the few things being done by volunteers for substandard housing.”

City officials agree that creating enough affordable housing is a daunting task.

“Almost every community has acute housing needs for low-income people,” said Olav Hassel of the Thousand Oaks housing services office. “There is no way to meet the total need.”

The city has helped provide through subsidized funding about 2,000 affordable homes over the last 15 years, and an additional 2,000 are still needed to meet the demand in the city, he said.

Habitat for Humanity “is one of a huge number of programs the city assists in,” Hassel said. The city also invests directly in public housing and helps subsidize homes constructed by private and nonprofit organizations, he said.

But if Habitat for Humanity’s efforts are just a small part of the solution, for the volunteers who helped build the Schrader’s house, seeing the project through is a reward in itself.

“There is a real sense of accomplishment to see it completed and have the Schraders move in,” said Dick Deakins of Newbury Park, a retired aeronautical engineer. Deakins has been working on the house since February and has helped on other Habitat for Humanity projects in Mississippi and in Simi Valley.

“There was a need for it, so I did it,” Deakins said.

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Deakins, who hopes to be involved in more Habitat projects in Thousand Oaks, said he worked as a building contractor during college. But building skills are not a requirement for this barn raising-type effort, he said.

Ed Greenwood, another retired volunteer who said he had built only small things before, agreed.

“The first day you learn, the second day you are in charge and the third day you are running a crew,” Greenwood said.

Before the Schraders are able to move in, either some landscaping needs to be added to the yard, or the city will need to approve a variance that would let them move in without landscaping. That will hopefully happen in the next few days, Debbie Schrader said.

“We have always volunteered in the community, so it [having volunteers build the house] is coming back full circle,” she said. “The amount of love people have shown by volunteering is immeasurable.”