Donation Dip Puts Home Project at Risk

When Habitat for Humanity broke ground on a 53-home project in Pacoima last November, organizers for the nonprofit group hoped to move needy families into the first 10 homes by this Christmas.

Today, though, the site remains mostly dirt, with only two houses framed out behind a chain-link fence. A late December move-in date is unlikely.

Clearing the trash-filled area took time, as did obtaining permits and compacting the earth to make it stable.

But organizers are more worried about diminishing funds that could cause long-term delays.

Donations to the local Habitat have all but stopped since the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Donors have called to say they’re sending money to New York instead of Pacoima, said Terri-Lei Robertson, Habitat’s executive director in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys. She expects the end of the year to be “lean.”

Sitting in her trailer office on the Pacoima site recently, Robertson said she’s afraid people will forget about local needs in their desire to reach out to those in need across the country.

“We can’t begrudge them by any means, but on the other hand, we’re wondering what we’re going to do. Nothing here stops because something happens somewhere else.”

The Pacoima project, with a striking view of the mountains, is wedged between ramshackle houses and an aging apartment complex. Roosters crow from a neighboring house. At night, gangs are active, residents say, but the Habitat community will be gated.

In this neighborhood that is home to some of the city’s poorest families, the need for affordable housing only grows. Many people live in garages or makeshift bedrooms on patios. More than 300 families have applied for the 53 Habitat homes.

To be eligible, each family must have a wage earner. But many of those who apply for homes earn so little that, even with a steady job, they don’t make the required minimum of around $15,000.

Habitat families aren’t given houses as gifts. Though the houses are sold to them at cost, families must provide a small down payment, help build their homes and pay back an interest-free mortgage loan. The idea is to give what Habitat calls a “hand up,” not a handout.

When Habitat for Humanity started building homes 25 years ago, an affiliate like the one in the San Fernando Valley might build a handful of houses a year.

These days, affordable housing is so scarce that more and more affiliates, particularly in urban areas, are building subdivisions when they can find the land. Recognizing the problem, the city of Los Angeles pitched in with its own no-interest loan to help Habitat get started in Pacoima.

“With the strong economy we’ve had until recently, you tend to lose affordable housing, not gain it,” said Ted Swisher, vice president in charge of U.S. affiliates at Habitat for Humanity International in Americus, Ga.

“You kind of have a double whammy of increased need and less available affordable housing. And while the median income of the country was rising and the folks at the top were getting rich, the people at the bottom just became poorer.”

On a recent morning, as he laid pipe for the first house on the lot, Frank DiDomenico, a retired plumber and the Pacoima project’s construction manager, stood in the sun, his weathered face shaded by the brim of an old straw hat. The pressing need he sees all around him is sometimes overwhelming, he said, shaking his head.

“We could build now until we die--until the year 3000 maybe--and we wouldn’t have enough houses for everyone,” he said.

The pace is a little slow, because few of the project’s many volunteers have building expertise. Professionals are called in to do skilled jobs on the houses, such as heating and air conditioning or cement finishing on the foundations, DiDomenico said.

“And that costs money. We’re always hoping we can pay the bills,” he said.

A few miles southeast of the construction site, in Burbank, the Valdez family also worried about the bills. Felipe and Maria Valdez, who were approved in 1999 for one of the first 10 Pacoima homes, keep getting rent increases. In March, the rent for the tiny, rundown one-bedroom apartment went from $725 to $750. Next month it will go up again to $775. Felipe Valdez, a welder at a furniture company, earns about $25,000 a year.

The couple have five children.

The four boys--5-year-old twins, a 10-year-old and a 4-year-old--share a bunk bed pushed against the foot of their parents’ bed. Nancy Valdez, 15, sleeps in a nook little bigger than her bed just outside the bedroom. She’s already chosen the curtains for her own room in the new house, as well as glow-in-the-dark stars to put on the ceiling.

The family shares one closet. The dresser in the shoe box of a living room is packed tight with children’s clothes.

A while back, the Valdezes gave the landlord notice, saying they’d be moving into their new four-bedroom home at the end of the year. Now, they’re nervous about what will happen when they ask to stay.

Maria Valdez is eager to move.

“I will have room for my children, a place for them to play outside, a place to put our things away,” she said.

The Habitat staff member who was visiting her could not estimate when the house, which has yet to be started, will be ready. When she heard that funding was slowing, Maria Valdez shook her head and looked around her living room. She said she had given up scrubbing the dirty, cracked white walls. It left her hands sore and did no good.

“Tu quieres tu casa, si?” she asked her smallest child, Kevin, holding him tight against her knees. You want your home, yes?

At Habitat headquarters, Swisher said everyone is bracing for tough times.

“I think any charitable organization that’s not in the Red Cross line of work has got to be worried. If they say they’re not, they’re either escaping reality or they’re lying,” he said.

In Pacoima last week, Habitat volunteers tried something new: a garage sale.

On the dirt lot, they laid out tables, piled with clothes, shoes, old TVs--even a green, shiny prom gown.

“We have to do whatever we can do that doesn’t seem selfish in light of what’s going on across the country,” Robertson said. “We have to find ways to keep building.”