Nonprofits Can’t Do It All

Thanksgiving came early for Nicolas and Marlene Enriquez and their three children. They broke ground last week on a new three-bedroom home in Pacoima, one of 53 to be built on a Pierce Street lot by the new homeowners and by volunteers from the nonprofit group Habitat for Humanity. If all goes well, the Enriquez home and nine others will be finished by summer, and the family will be able to leave behind the one-bedroom motor home where they now live. Talk about Christmas in July.

The rest of the houses should be finished within three to five years, making the Pacoima project the most ambitious yet for Habitat’s San Fernando Valley / Santa Clarita chapter. But impressive as it is, it is not enough to ease the northeast Valley’s housing crisis.

Over the past 10 years, the local chapter has helped build 43 homes for low-income families. Eligibility is based on need, the family’s ability to pay for the house and family members’ willingness to put in sweat equity, working alongside Habitat volunteers.

Applicants also must show that they’re now living in overcrowded or substandard housing. Unfortunately, in the northeast Valley, that’s all too easy to do.

More than a third of residential properties in the northeast Valley are in deplorable condition, according to a recent city survey. Yet people live in them anyway. They have little choice. As the area’s population has soared, boosted by a wave of immigrants and working poor, apartment vacancy rates hover at 2% and rents have skyrocketed. Families live crowded in garages and backyard campers, in any shelter they can find.

No wonder a Habitat home seems a Thanksgiving miracle. Families who qualify to buy one make a minimal down payment and take out a no-interest loan. The family pays only what it costs to build the house, which Habitat estimates to be $95,000 to $120,000, depending on how much of the material and labor is donated. Spread over 30 to 40 years, payments amount to less than what many families now pay to rent a cramped and substandard apartment.

By making home ownership possible, by making sure housing is both safe and affordable, groups such as Habitat help keep the American dream alive for the poor as well as the rich. The power of home ownership to help weave families more tightly into the fabric of society is seen in the lack of mortgage defaults. All the families who have bought and built Habitat homes in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys over the past 10 years have kept up with their loans.

But nonprofit groups can’t meet the need by themselves. Habitat has received more than 300 applications for its 53 Pacoima homes, and more arrive every day.

Government can’t do it alone either, but it can work in partnership with nonprofits and developers. It can use its zoning authority, as the city did to pave the way for the Pacoima project, to create conditions under which builders are encouraged to provide affordable housing. Through better land use and planning, it can work to make new and sorely needed multifamily apartments and condominiums more palatable to neighborhoods. And it can enforce building safety codes in place now by stepping up long delayed inspections.

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To Take Action: To apply for a Habitat house or to volunteer to help build one, contact Habitat for Humanity, 5525 Cahuenga Blvd., North Hollywood, (818) 487-9600.