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Victor Maccharoli- Left to right, Igor Ortiz Jr., 8, Supervisor Salud Carbajal, Mayor Marty Blum, Aline Ortiz, 11, Igor Ortiz, and Laura Rosales break ground at the new Habitat for Humanity site on San Pascual St. Wednesday. The project will include four new homes for 13 people.

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Ground breaks on housing project

By ERIC LINDBERG — Dec. 11, 2008

Igor Ortiz stood on a sunlit hillside yesterday and turned the first shovel of dirt from the ground where his new home will rise.

As one of four families to receive a home through Habitat for Humanity’s latest affordable housing project, Ortiz said life will never be the same for him or his two young children.

“I just can’t really explain it,” he said. “My luck has just completely changed.”

Ortiz came to the United States 11 years ago with a broken heart, his career with a professional soccer team in Mexico City cut short by injuries. Seeking a better life for his children, he settled in Santa Barbara and became a U.S. citizen three years ago.

But working as a custodian at Monte Vista Elementary School and raising his kids as a single parent made it tough to pay the ever-rising rent.

So when someone handed him a pamphlet about Habitat for Humanity’s housing project at 618 San Pascual St. — where four families would get a chance to build and own their own homes — he dismissed it inwardly but shoved it in his back pocket so as to not appear rude.

“The first time I saw it, I thought it’s too good to be true,” Ortiz said.

But after coming across the brochure later, he decided it was worth a shot and went to one of the application meetings. Nearly a year later, he stood grinning with his children, Igor Jr., 8, and Alaine, 11, as well as members from the three other families on the empty lot where they will build their homes.

“It means everything for us,” he said. “It’s special. We’re going to be secure in one place.”

Now an oddly sloping, 6,250 square-foot vacant lot, the property will soon undergo drastic changes that will transform it into three two-bedroom homes and a one-bedroom home.

Construction will take up to two years and the future inhabitants will have to roll up their sleeves and put a bit of sweat equity into the project. Once they move in, the families will begin making mortgage payments on no-interest loans.

For Ortiz, he’ll be paying about half as much as he puts toward rent these days.

“We don’t have to worry about rent going up or anything,” he said. “This is like a dream.”

Gabriel Escamilla, a local cabinetmaker, is also relieved that his 5-year-old son, Gabriel, and 3-year-old twin daughters, Liliana and Andrea, will grow up free of worry about rising rents or landlords.

“You feel more peaceful,” he said of being able to own a home.

He’s also happy to have the chance to take part in building his own home, explaining that he’ll be able to see what goes into it and how well it’s built.

Mike Frank, vice president of the board of Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County, said the new building would offer its residents a renewed sense of dignity and accomplishment.

“Habitat is in the business of building hope,” he said. “…We’re moving forward and we’re going to do something positive for the community.”

From acquiring the land to pouring foundations to building the two-story structures, the final price tag is expected to approach $2 million. The Housing Trust Fund of Santa Barbara County and the city of Santa Barbara have provided short-term loans, but the mortgage payments will eventually help Habitat for Humanity launch future projects, Frank said.

“Everybody wins,” he said.

To be eligible for the project, the applicants had to meet a specific set of criteria that included currently living in substandard housing, having an income between 40 and 60 percent of the area median income, and being able to put in 250 hours of sweat equity per adult family member.

The homes at 618 San Pascual St. will eventually serve 13 people — all legal residents who have lived or worked on the South Coast for at least a year.

Laura Rosales, who will move into the one-bedroom unit as soon as it’s complete, said the process has changed her life. Although she had owned a home years ago, her life had since been torn apart by an illness and she lost hope in ever owning a home again.

When friends wrote letters on her behalf and managed to get her to attend an application meeting, a small glimmer of faith started to glow inside her.

“You go from the restrictive despair of poverty, the ‘can’t’ of poverty, to the ‘can,’” she said.

Rosales said with yesterday’s groundbreaking ceremony, the reality of the project has become even clearer.

“You’re graced, if you will, by a tsunami of hope,” she said. “As that seed takes hold, disbelief falls away and you get a little giddy.”

While funds are already in place to build the homes during the next few years — the building should be completed by mid-2010 — Habitat for Humanity officials have launched a fundraising campaign to completely pay off the building costs, develop funds for future property acquisitions and create an endowment fund.

More than 40 percent of the $3.5 million they plan to raise has already poured in, and organizers hope the community will respond by donating, volunteering at the build site or shopping at the organization’s “ReStore,” a store at 6725 Hollister Ave. that sells recycled useable building materials.

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