Habitat for Humanity Silicon Valley, with assistance from the
city of Morgan Hill and area foundations, began coordinating the
six-home project on Cory Drive several years ago.
About a year from now, six Morgan Hill families will see their longtime dreams to own a home come true, after patiently and steadfastly demonstrating their commitment to work hard for the improvement of their community, in the eyes of their nonprofit lender.
Habitat for Humanity Silicon Valley, with assistance from the city of Morgan Hill and area foundations, began coordinating the six-home project on Cory Drive several years ago. The families and community members who have participated since its inception conducted a “wall raising” ceremony in February, commemorating the beginning of construction, in earnest, at the site. The ceremony was attended by nearly 100 people, including Mayor Steve Tate who welcomed the 29 residents to their new neighborhood.
When the local chapter of the global nonprofit mega-giant announced its upcoming Morgan Hill project back in 2007, more than 600 local families applied to be homeowners, according to Habitat for Humanity Silicon Valley Executive Director Jennifer Simmons.
An extensive and thorough review process required each family to fill out reams of paperwork and present exhaustive personal data, to prove their credit worthiness, financial stability and other qualifications. The selectors prefer “very low-income” earners, whose household incomes range between 30 and 50 percent of the local median, and they look for residents who live in overcrowded or otherwise inadequate housing.
Future homeowners also have to demonstrate their willingness to “embrace the program” by contributing a minimum of 500 hours per family of “sweat equity” toward the construction of their houses, and helping their neighbors along the way. A series of home visits with the narrowed-down list of families, and interviews with Habitat board members assess the future homeowners’ commitment to give back to the community.
The six families who waited through this selection process in Morgan Hill easily met all the criteria, Simmons said.
“I think each one of these families is going to be a great part of the community,” Simmons said.
Project fulfills dreams
The project originated when a developer cashed out before fulfilling his commitment to the city to build six “below market-rate” units, according to Morgan Hill Senior Project Manager for housing services Erwin Ordoñez. Habitat for Humanity wanted the property, the existing residents didn’t like the original condominium-style design of the affordable homes, and a deal was made. The nonprofit purchased the property and worked with the city and the neighbors on overhauling the design so the site would contain the six individual single-family homes now under construction.
“It was a way for Morgan Hill as a community to make lemonade with the lemons the developer left them with,” Ordoñez said. “We tried to find a win-win solution for everybody.”
Habitat for Humanity is able to make its homes affordable with generous donations of both labor and money. Homeowners qualify for a 30-year no-interest loan on each home, Simmons said. The Morgan Hill and Gilroy offices of Nationwide Coldwell Banker raised about $100,000 to sponsor one of the local homes, and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans sponsored the majority of funding and labor for another home.
“The community involvement and volunteerism that comes out and helps build the homes, that’s where a lot of the value comes from. When we have about 25 people (on the site) hammering away, it’s amazing to see that,” Simmons said.
The homes range in size from about 950 to 1,250 square feet, and all are two stories.
The six families who will live there already talk about the bond of community they have found with their future neighbors. They have already started working together at the site, as the future neighbors build each others’ homes. They’re even making plans to have block parties and barbecues when they all move in.
A ‘dream come true’
Martha Esquivel is eager to give up her vacation days as a driver for the U.S. Postal Service to build a home for herself and her 14-year-old daughter Elizabeth.
“I even wake up excited,” Esquivel said with a beaming smile. “It’s a dream come true.”
A single mother, Esquivel, 42, and her daughter have lived in a rented mobile home north of town for about 14 years.
“Morgan Hill is a very nice place but it’s not really affordable for people with low incomes,” she said.
She signed up for the local Habitat for Humanity program through the insistence of her sister, who also lives in Morgan Hill. “She kept bugging me and bugging me,” Esquivel laughed.
Elizabeth, a freshman at Sobrato High School, said she’s looking forward to having more room in their new house.
“It will be nice to have our own place,” she said.
The mother and daughter spend most of their time in Morgan Hill, hanging out with Martha’s five siblings who still live close by and participating in summer baseball and softball programs, and being involved in St. Catherine Church activities.
“We’re willing to work for it,” Martha said. “I’ve worked as a teenager, non-stop, and we don’t mind working for something we know we’re going to have.”
Selection affirms move
The Hays family assumed they would never be able to buy a home when they moved to Morgan Hill from Iowa, considering California’s notoriously high real estate prices.
But it was worth it to come here anyway, chiefly because of the availability of services for Steve and Elaine Hays’ 19-year-old son Alex, who has Down’s syndrome.
Now, after living in Morgan Hill for almost six years and in a four-bedroom apartment at Jasmine Square for almost five, they see their selection as a Habitat homeowner as an “affirmation” of their decision to move.
“We knew it would be the only way we would afford a home here,” said Elaine Hays, who works part-time for a home-school education consultant.
The couple sat on the floor of their living room one recent evening, with their five children sitting on couches beside them as the family talked about why they’re looking forward to owning a new home. Throughout the cozy room were stacks of children’s and educational books, original artwork on the walls, magnetic letters covering a door, and similar signs that the Hays children are home-schooled.
“We’ll be able to paint our walls pink!” exclaimed 8-year-old Mandy.
The new home will have a back yard, and while none of the families are yet formally in possession of the home sites, it will likely have a two-car garage, two stories and four bedrooms.
Chris, 18, has spent about eight hours per week on the site already, and is working on becoming a Habitat for Humanity “master builder,” a title that requires at least 500 individual hours of volunteer construction.
Elaine said she visits the site at least twice a week, to greet the volunteers and watch the progress unfold. When Habitat volunteers came for a home visit, it was during Jasmine Square’s “Great Giveaway,” a free garage sale that Elaine helped coordinate.
A family’s gratitude
Jesus and Maria Guadalupe Serrato’s children helped translate as the couple talked about the realization of a dream that motivated them to immigrate to America 24 years ago – to provide better opportunities for their children.
“She thanks God for finally giving her a chance for owning a home,” Maria Guadalupe’s son Miguel, 20, said. “For helping with the American Dream of owning a home.”
Maria Guadalupe, 50, works at Eco-Care Professional House Cleaning, a cooperative residential cleaning service in San Jose, where she has worked for about 14 years. The family has lived in their rented mobile home in Madrone Mobile Estates for about the same time.
Jesus Serrato, 52, works at Monterey Mushrooms in Morgan Hill.
“He’s very grateful for this opportunity. It’s one of his dreams,” said Miguel, who attends Gavilan College and is working toward his enrollment in a four-year college. He wants to become a teacher or guidance counselor.
The couple lived in Southern California when they moved to America. But jobs there were scarce, and they moved to Morgan Hill after nearly three years.
“My mom said, ‘We moved here so we could have children, and we wanted better for our children so they’ll have what we didn’t have,'” translated Viviana, a freshman at Sobrato High School. Also moving into the new home will be Jesus, Jr., 27, who has Down’s syndrome.
When asked why they thought Habitat for Humanity chose them to join the Morgan Hill project, Viviana said, “My mom and dad, even though they don’t have a lot themselves, they want to help other people in the community.”
The parents participate in community service activities with St. Catherine Church.
Their mother also makes snacks for neighborhood holiday parties, and has always participated in her children’s school activities.
And she has apparently passed this contributing tendency on to her children, as Viviana regularly stays after school at Sobrato’s homework center to help her fellow students – and to seek help when she needs it.
It’s not only the yard surrounding the home and the palatial space their it will occupy compared to the mobile home they now live in that appeals to the Serratos. “It’s the fact of having a new home that no one’s been in, and having it to ourselves,” Viviana said.
Home will provide a future for children
“Now my monthly payments will be going to something good, instead of making somebody else richer,” said Ismael Montes, who lives with his wife and their four sons in a three-bedroom apartment on Dunne Avenue.
Ismael, 28, and wife Letty, 26, drive by their home-site with sons Michael, Vincent, Jacob and Joshua about three times a week to admire the progress.
The family moved to Terracina Apartments in May 2009, after outgrowing the apartment they lived in Gilroy for three years prior to that. Aside from comfort-related concerns, they wanted to enroll their sons in the Morgan Hill Unified School District while they were still young, as they plan to stay in town.
Like other local Habitat for Humanity families, home ownership has always been a long shot for the couple. “If we got a home (at market prices), we would have no car and very little groceries,” Ismael said jocularly.
Artwork by the four boys age 17 months to 7 years decorates the refrigerator in the kitchen of their apartment. The three older siblings wrestled playfully in the living room while their parents talked about why they think Habitat for Humanity chose them to live in a new home.
“I think they saw a good family who had four boys, and we can give them a future of having a home to grow up and go to college, eventually,” said Letty, who describes herself as a part-time student and full-time mom.
The couple is pleased they are already building relationships with their future neighbors, and their kids are already making friends with the future neighbor kids.
Ismael, who works in parks maintenance, is aware of the current financial troubles facing his employer, the city of Morgan Hill, and the possibility of layoffs on the horizon – and that he is vulnerable with only three years seniority.
“I have faith,” he said. “If I get let go, I get let go, but I’ve got to keep moving forward. God gave me my kids and he’s not going to abandon me.”
Finally, a place to call their own
The Pachecos have grown used to moving often in order to accommodate their growing family and beat the escalating living costs in South Valley, but they think they can get used to staying in one place when their new home is built.
With three young sons, including a baby boy born March 18, Joey and Deborah Pacheco just moved from Hollister into an apartment on Spring Avenue a few weeks ago. “It’s good to be able to pick up your whole house in four hours, but you shouldn’t be able to do that,” said Deborah Pacheco, 26, a former administrative assistant who now stays at home to take care of the couple’s sons Justus, 4, and Jordan, 3 and infant Josiah Wayne.
“We can finally lay our heads down in a place we can call home,” said Joey Pacheco, 31, who has worked for the city’s water department for about 10 years. “Morgan Hill is definitely a place I want to raise my kids. Without Habitat for Humanity our future would still be in question.”
Jordan and Justus, though young, clearly comprehend the momentousness of their upcoming move. At the wall raising ceremony in February, Justus cried because he couldn’t join the adults and teenagers, as participants must be at least 16.
“What color do you want your room?” Deborah asked the boys recently.
“Green,” Justus said. “Purple,” Jordan said, as the two played with toy cars on the living room floor.
Their mother said both are “big fans” of Buzz Lightyear, an iconic Disney character who dons the colors on his make-believe space suit.
The Pachecos discovered what a small world South Valley is when they met their future neighbors. While introducing themselves to Martha Esquivel, also a homeowner at the site, they learned that her mother used to baby-sit Joey.
That world will soon be a lot smaller as the families will tote planks and hammer nails together for the next 12 to 18 months.
“We’re going to be able to do our part and make it possible for other families,” Joey said.
Across the world to a new hometown
Mark Yang and his wife Mandy Lin live in a crowded house in Mission Ranch with the couple’s two small children and Mark’s parents.
Mark, 33, came to Morgan Hill with his parents, brother and sister from mainland China in 1991. He moved around among different apartments for the first 10 years. He met Mandy, also a Chinese immigrant, in San Jose about five years ago. They have a daughter, Ella, 3, and a son, Eric, about a year-and-a-half old.
The couple want to stay in Morgan Hill as long as they can, even if it means crowded quarters in Mark’s parents’ home in the northeastern part of town. Being selected as a Habitat for Humanity family will help them stay here.
“It’s like my second hometown,” said Mark. “We’ve wanted to own a home since we moved here.”
Mark works as a waiter in the Best Taste Chinese restaurant in Campbell, where he has worked for about two years. Mandy Lin, 32, takes care of the children, who attend pre-school two days a week.
The couple hasn’t started working at the site yet because of rainy weather and Mark’s work schedule, but they “can’t wait” to start doing so by the end of this month.
Mark said the family is thankful to Habitat for Humanity’s volunteers at the work site, who have been patient in helping the couple overcome a pronounced language barrier.
