Nonprofit to build 14 townhouses

For nine years, Efrain Pineda Funes, his wife, Lucia, and their four children have shoehorned themselves into a two-bedroom apartment in Koreatown.

Later this year, their housing picture promises to brighten considerably when they move into a new three-bedroom townhouse in South Los Angeles.

“We feel so excited,” said Funes, who installs vehicle tracking devices for a living. “We never thought we’d qualify for this nice program.”

The program is Habitat for Humanity’s Jimmy Carter Work Project, an annual five-day event during which volunteers -- including the former president and his wife, Rosalynn -- build or repair houses for low-income residents.

At a news conference Saturday at a long-vacant corner lot on South Vermont Avenue at 112th Street, Carter announced that the project had selected Los Angeles as its 2007 host city.

Carter told a friendly crowd that he and his wife would return in late October to help transform the site into Vermont Village, with 14 townhouses and a children’s playground.

They also will pound nails at a 16-home development in San Pedro. In addition, volunteers will fix roofs and make other repairs on 70 dwellings belonging to low-income families throughout Los Angeles.

Carter and his wife last built houses in Los Angeles in 1995, when they and hundreds of volunteers constructed 26 homes in Watts. He noted that the original residents have remained in those houses.

“Most people lucky enough to get into a Habitat house stay in them and pass them down,” he said, adding that home ownership provides “a new life for them.”

Since 1984, the Carters have spent a week each year building homes for Habitat in the United States, India, South Africa, the Philippines and elsewhere.

Last year, they ventured to New Orleans, where much of the housing stock had been decimated by Hurricane Katrina. They plan to return to New Orleans in May.

“Los Angeles is faced with a housing crisis that leaves many of our residents unable to reach the American dream of homeownership,” said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who joined Carter at the news conference. He said the city planned to contribute $2.1 million toward the nearly $9-million cost of the two projects; the state also will kick in funds.

Erin Rank, president and chief executive of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles, said the median income of renter households in Los Angeles is about $35,000 and the median home price is an out-of-reach $535,000.

By contrast, Habitat plans to charge qualifying families $180,000 for their townhouses and give them 20 years to pay off their interest-free mortgages.

With property tax and insurance, families’ monthly cost should come to about $600, Rank said.

Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes both projects, said she felt like her constituents had “won the lottery.”

“When people own their own houses,” she said, “the neighborhood improves, the community improves and kids do better in school.”

Carter said he expected no lack of volunteers for the Oct. 28 to Nov. 2 construction work. He noted that Brad Pitt’s appearance at last year’s project near Mumbai drew so many participants that “we could hardly find our hammers.”

Pitt, he added, plans to pitch in come October.

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martha.groves@latimes.com