Building a Future

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

Martin Luther King Jr., from a March 22, 1964, speech in St. Louis

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With each nail hammered into place, each piece of lumber sawed and every section of pipe laid, Greg Carolus said he can feel King’s dream coming closer to reality.

Carolus, the construction superintendent, and about two dozen volunteers spent the Martin Luther King Day holiday on Willis Avenue in Panorama City, working side by side to complete the first six of nine houses in a Habitat for Humanity project that will provide new homes for impoverished Valley families.

“We’ve got all kinds of people--rich, poor, black, white, Latino. It doesn’t matter because everyone is working for the same cause,” said Carolus, a veteran Granada Hills contractor.

“People enjoy putting in their time here. They walk out of that gate at the end of the day and they know they’ve accomplished something. They feel like a million bucks.”

Since construction began last June, Habitat officials said, several hundred volunteers have spent time working at the site. They include Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, high school students, retired people, professionals and residents of nearby apartments in the working-class Latino neighborhood who originally came by looking for paid jobs.

Instead of a birthday party, one regular volunteer recruited 30 of her friends and family members to spend a day building houses for people whom they do not know and will probably never meet, Carolus said.

The volunteers, working under the supervision of construction professionals, perform tasks that range from sanding counters and hauling cement to preparing midday lunches.

Habitat for Humanity, founded in 1976 by philanthropist Millard Fuller, currently has 1,200 chapters that have built more than 50,000 homes for low-income families in 40 countries.

As part of the “sweat equity” agreement with the nonprofit home builder, the future homeowners on Willis must put 500 hours of hands-on work into the project. The nine new homeowners have made small down payments and monthly, interest-free mortgage payments since they were selected from among hundreds of applicants, Habitat officials said.

The first houses on the Willis site were originally expected to be finished in March, but rain and other delays have pushed the completion date to June. About the time the Panorama City project is completed, Habitat will begin another eight-home project in Burbank.

Michelle Elbert, who is spending a year as a staff member with Habitat for Humanity of the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys as part of her service with the national AmeriCorps volunteer effort, said that the families--some as large as 10 people--who will move into the homes have been living for years crammed into one-bedroom apartments and, in one case, living in a converted garage.

“A big part of the American dream is homeownership. We try to help people who under normal circumstances wouldn’t be able to achieve homeownership,” Elbert said.

“When the families are out here working and you see the smiles on those kids’ faces, knowing that this is going to be their house, well, that’s a great feeling,” she said.

Another regular on the site, contractor Dave Throgmorton of La Crescenta, helped supervise less experienced volunteers Monday. The work, he said, was a welcome change of pace from the typical competitive atmosphere in the construction business.

“These people want to be here. Everyone has fun,” he said. “I recommend this to anyone. I guarantee you everyone who comes here ends up walking away with more than they came with.”