Peoples' Self-Help Housing

Learning assistance helps miracles come true

12/06/2004 | By June Rich | News-Press Correspondent

Steve Malone | News-Press | Carmen Lozano, education supervisor for Peoples' Self-Help Housing's learning centers, tutors Sendi Hernandez, left, and Alma Hernandez at Milagro de Ladera.

When you're poor and your family doesn't speak much English, it seems that some doors simply never open to you.

As a child, you may struggle to understand your math homework, your social studies, your reading. You may not venture into unfamiliar territory.

That is unless you're one of the lucky kids at the learning centers run by Peoples' Self-Help Housing at four of its rental properties. Though the program's core service is after-school tutoring, it does much more.

In the last year, Oscar de la Palma, 8, has seen whole worlds bloom. Oscar lives at Milagro de Ladera in Santa Barbara, on the lower Westside.

Most recently, Oscar was impressed by a slideshow saturated with brilliant pictures of ocean creatures: octopus, a kelp forest, and a sea cucumber, which he laughingly referred to as "that red potato thing."

"It was interesting how they camouflage," said Oscar, a quiet boy with short brown hair, of the presentation put on by the Ocean Futures Society.

To learn about careers, the children at Ladera recently met an archaeologist, the captain of a boat, an engineer, a librarian, a teacher and a professional photographer.

And last summer, Oscar and the other 30 kids in the program got to know their city.

They toured the Santa Barbara County Courthouse, the Natural History Museum, the Botanic Garden, the Maritime Museum. They even met the mayor of Santa Barbara.

Without the program, many of these kids would have to squeeze into the already overburdened after-school programs at their public schools. And during the summer?

"They'd be doing nothing," said Carmen Lozano, supervisor of the programs at all four sites. "Their parents are working or don't have time, or can't bring younger siblings along. Everything costs money."

The centers run at Ladera in Santa Barbara, the Carpinteria Camper Park, the Dahlia Court Apartments in Carpinteria, and Los Adobes de Maria in Santa Maria, and serve only residents of each complex. Between 300 and 400 kids study at the various locations.

At all the sites except for Los Adobes, which is new, the program is all the more remarkable for what the sites used to be—some of the worst slums in the county.

At Ladera, children used to play in raw sewage. Curtains billowed forlornly out of broken windows. Tenants watched their neighbors through holes in the ceiling.

When Peoples' Self-Help bought the apartments for renovation near the end of 1997, they found bullet holes.

"It was disastrous," said Jeanette Duncan, executive director of the organization. "The board took one look at the place and said, 'We cannot let people live like this.' "

Now the complex is clean with tile artwork at the gated entrance. A play structure sits in the middle of well-kept courtyard, adjacent to the learning center. Families walk around at night without concern.

And with the peace of mind that their children are growing to love learning.

"They have a lot of interests now," said Fermina de la Palma of Oscar and her daughter, Frida, 6, who just started coming to the center this year. "They're more intelligent. I ask my little girl, 'Why don't you get a toy?' and she says 'I like the books.' "