Neighbors Hold Low-Income Homes in High Esteem

The families living at Casa Velasquez only had to move a couple of blocks.

Jose and Margarita Galvan moved from Barry Street, where they shared a home with another family and slept on the floor so their children could have the only bed in the house.

Jose Gonzalez moved from Lomita Street, where he crammed into a one-room trailer with his wife and two children.

And Rene Corado moved from a small, cockroach-infested apartment on Ventura Boulevard where his four children, ages 6 to 17, squeezed into a single bedroom.

For these and 10 other families, it may have only been a short move to Casa Velasquez, a city-owned, low-income housing project opened in late 1995.

But really, it’s a world away.

“A lot of people live in garages and trailers,” said Jose Gonzalez, an immigrant construction worker who moved into the apartment house after four years in a one-room trailer where the sounds of gunfire and breaking glass were common.

“But now we have two bedrooms, a garage, kitchen, dining room, living room,” he said. “There needs to be more places like this. It’s part of the dream to stay in the USA--to work and then live in houses like this.”

Carved out of one of Camarillo’s poorest, working-class neighborhoods, Casa Velasquez has provided these families with a step up and a different perspective on life.

Already, there are 30 people on a list waiting to get into the housing project. But it’s more than just a living room or a washer and dryer that attract people to the complex.

It is the privacy and security of larger apartments. It is the leadership and communication skills the neighborhood meetings offer.

And it’s the camaraderie and sense of belonging generated by the project, which is shaped in a horseshoe so that neighbors can get to know each other.

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Prior to the development of Casa Velasquez, the land was mostly vacant, containing only a few dilapidated houses with outdoor plumbing.

The city bought the property several years ago, cleared the land and leased it for $1 a year for the next 55 years to Cabrillo Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit housing group.

There was only one catch: Cabrillo could not chop down a towering tree on the corner of Glenn Drive.

“At the very beginning I said that tree had to stay if they wanted this project,” said Mayor Stan Daily, who lived nearby as a child.

“A lot of my friends lived in that area and we’d play in that tree and climb and swing from a tire swing,” Daily said. “It has a lot of good memories for me.”

By December 1995, the property sported one triplex and five duplexes, with one four-bedroom unit and the rest two and three bedrooms.

Councilwoman Charlotte Craven said this project was badly needed to help pull residents out of cramped and debilitating conditions.

“Some of the residential overcrowding is tremendous and your heart just goes out to these people,” said Craven, who owns nine units she rents to low-income tenants. “But by the city getting involved in that project, we improved their quality of life.”

The city has four other low-income housing projects and is waiting for federal housing officials to build on three other nearby lots.

But Casa Velasquez is unique in that it is next door to the neighborhood these families came from.

Lupe and Martin Medina moved to Casa Velasquez from a Mobile Avenue house they rented with another couple. The Medinas shared a bedroom with their three children.

“When Cabrillo came around the neighborhood with applications I was really excited,” said Lupe Medina, who works nights at Camarillo’s Pic-N-Save.

Medina was born a couple of blocks away, and she and her husband have always been forced to share housing with other families.

“I wanted the opportunity to live in a brand new house and have a washer and dryer and fridge and stove,” she said. “And for my kids to have their own room.”

Cabrillo distributed nearly 300 applications to the residents in the adjacent neighborhood.

“Most people build places and bring in people from the outside, but Cabrillo took no outsiders,” Medina said. “The kids are really happy because there was no one to play with at the other place.”

At Camarillo City Hall, there is a photo of Medina’s 4-year-old son, Nathaniel, playing in the tree Daily pushed so hard to save.

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The picture was taken the day Camarillo City Council members and Cabrillo representatives held a welcome party, complete with mariachis and plenty of food.

“They really went out of their way to make us feel comfortable,” Medina said.

To be eligible to live at Casa Velasquez, residents must make less than 60% of the median income. For a family of four, that translates to an annual wage of $34,740 or less.

However, the average family of four at Casa Velasquez makes about $25,000, and one family of six makes $19,000, Cabrillo representatives say.

Monthly rents range from $584 to $737, depending upon the size of the unit.

When the Corados lived in the Ventura Boulevard apartment, they paid $800 for two small bedrooms and one bath. Now they pay $665 for three bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, a garage and a play area for the children.

And although his front yard is small, Corado has carved out a space to grow tomatoes, peppers, cilantro and flowers.

“We lived there for four years and never made any friends,” Corado said. “But here, we’re all friends and stick together and help each other out.”

The residents frequently hold barbecues, eat at each other’s homes, watch one another’s children--there are 29 between the 13 families--and go on camping or beach trips.

Neighbors have gotten to know one another during monthly neighborhood meetings conducted in Spanish.

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There is no community center at Casa Velasquez, so Corado, president of the neighborhood committee, sets up folding chairs in his garage for the meetings.

“We are 13 families all living together, so we have these meetings to help each other,” said Corado, who after he was elected president compiled and distributed a list of everyone’s phone numbers.

“We’re pushing them to talk and to do something they’ve never done before, and to ask for help,” said Corado, an assistant curator at Camarillo’s Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology.

At a recent meeting, residents trickled in one by one after returning home from work. Older children played soccer next to the playground--in clear view of Corado’s garage.

The younger children sat on their mothers’ laps or in strollers.

Before the meeting, coloring sheets and crayons were distributed to the children and Cabrillo’s community planner, Lourdes Castro-Ramirez, tacked up pictures of the youngsters trying on firefighter gear taken at May’s fire safety meeting.

She began the meeting by telling the 10 adults that it’s important everyone attend.

The meetings provide an opportunity to discuss neighborhood issues, as well as a forum to bring in community members to discuss issues such as fire safety, telemarketing fraud, HeadStart and citizenship classes.

“We’ve been building affordable housing for many years now,” Castro-Ramirez said of Cabrillo’s other projects scattered throughout Ventura County.

“But we believed we needed to go a step further and not only build affordable housing, but help these families to improve themselves.”

She said forming a committee and electing officers has helped residents see themselves as leaders and part of a larger community.

“The best way to learn leadership is to do it--it doesn’t really come from a manual,” Castro-Ramirez said. “But I think little by little it has helped the families see themselves as having a voice.”

While the meetings foster leadership and a sense of belonging, the design of the Casa Velasquez takes it a step further.

“They didn’t make this like an apartment building, they made it like houses,” said Medina, who also serves as treasurer on the neighborhood committee. “Apartments are isolated, these are more like a community.”

Families who didn’t already know each other when they moved in soon got acquainted by opening their garage doors, which look out onto a playground and basketball court.

“It was an attempt to try to give the individuals a feeling of each one having their own place instead of just being part of a big nondescript building,” said Brady Roark, Cabrillo’s architect.

“You never know if people will actually pick up on that and do it,” he said. “But this time it seems like it’s worked out.”

It worked out so well that when the Galvans’ son accidentally started a fire in their townhome, Corado immediately collected $100 to help them out.

While Cabrillo refurbished their home, they stayed in a place that reminded them all too much of their room on Barry Street, where they slept on the floor so the children could have a bed.

The donation did more than help them financially, the Galvans said. It let them know that they had friends who cared.

“We didn’t have any communication with our other neighbors,” said Margarita Galvan, who works as a housekeeper.

“This place is so much better,” said Jose Galvan, a gardener. “The kids are happier and better adjusted.”

Not only has Casa Velasquez made a difference in these 13 families’ lives, it has also set an example for other parts of the neighborhood.

“After this housing was built here, some of the neighborhood really improved,” said Corado, who hopes other property owners will soon catch on. “Neighbors started fixing their houses, cutting bushes and painting. They don’t want their houses to look ugly next to ours.”