Peoples' Self-Help Housing

No box big enough for these families' Christmas gifts

11/22/04| By June Rich| News-Press Correspondent

Rafael Maldonado | News-Press | Enjoying the home they helped build is the DeLaCruz family: parents Claudia and Adapito, and children Fabricio, left, Monet and Esteban.

There will be no toys under the Christmas tree this year for the DeLaCruz children—Esteban, 9, Fabricio, 3 and Monet, almost 1—but the family couldn't be happier.

That's because, after almost two decades working the fields of the Santa Ynez Valley and living on its ranches, they finally have a place to call their own.

Late last year, Claudia and Adapito DeLaCruz were admitted into a program run by People's Self Help Housing, which will benefit from the News-Press Holiday Fund this year. It bands together low-income families (in this case 11) to build their own homes.

After a year of hard labor every weekend—pouring foundations, framing houses, hammering roofs—the families moved into their own homes, loftily named the Bridle Path Estates, in Los Alamos last month.

The "sweat equity" they poured into construction acted as their down payments. Now, each family pays a mortgage based on the actual cost of the land and the house, $155,000 to $210,000, depending on the size of the home.

For the DeLaCruz family, the move means stability and a future in this expensive county, but it also means this will be their best Christmas ever. They will buy furniture for the boys, rather than toys.

And there will be a tree.

"Before, the kids used to ask, 'Why can't we have a Christmas tree?' And I'd say, 'It's too small to bring one in here,' " said Ms. DeLaCruz, 31. "This year, we'll absolutely have one."

Others are not so lucky.

About 2,000 people languish on a list to get into the sweat equity program. Right now, People's Self Help has no such project in the works in the county, but is on the hunt for land.

Usually the land comes from a property owner who believes in the cause and wants to sell at a discounted price, or from a developer hoping People's Self Help will take on the affordable-housing component of a larger project.

In the Bridle Path project, there are teachers' aides, a cook, farmworkers, housekeepers, a detail worker at a car dealership, a cellar-master at Zaca Mesa Winery and Mr. DeLaCruz, ranch manager at Luvland Farms, 10 acres of lavender fields owned by former gossip columnist Rona Barrett.

"So many of these people are living in just horrible living conditions," said Jeanette Duncan, executive director of People's Self Help.

Ms. Duncan said the best feature of the sweat equity program, a concept modeled on Quaker barn-raising, is that the families walk away with incredible skills—running a Skilsaw, reading a blueprint, working cooperatively—and self-esteem.

The adults often move up to better jobs, or go back to school, and the children want to live up to the family's higher expectations.

In about two weeks, People's Self Help is scheduled to complete its 1,000th house on the Central and South Coast since opening its own doors in 1970.

Ms. Duncan said the group is able to raise money for new projects through federal, state and local low-interest loans, as well as grants from other nonprofit funders, but those funds are never enough to meet the growing need in such an expensive area.

Throughout the holiday season, the News-Press periodically publishes the names of donors to its annual Holiday Fund, which this year benefits People's Self-Help and K-9 PALS, which cares for and finds new homes for abandoned dogs.