Moorpark Plans Build-It-Yourself Housing Tract

In Moorpark, a fast-growing eastern Ventura County city where housing tracts seem to spring from rural land overnight, one 62-home development is going to take a bit longer than usual to finish.

That’s because the future residents of the $3.5-million Villa Campesina housing development are going to build their own homes--in their spare time.

The project, which is being financed jointly by private and government funds, will give 62 low-income families, mostly farm workers, an opportunity to own their own homes in Moorpark, a city where most new-home prices begin at about $200,000.

“It is a small but significant step to providing a solution for the shortage of low-income housing in Moorpark,� said Bernardo Perez, a former city councilman and board president of the Cabrillo Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit agency involved in the project.

When finished, Villa Campesina will be the first development in Ventura County to take advantage of a federal housing assistance program aimed at giving farm workers and low-income residents a chance to build and own their own homes. But first, families selected for the program will have to learn almost every aspect of home construction, from pouring concrete foundations to putting on a roof.

Work Agreement

“Families who qualify must sign an agreement that they will work 40 hours a week for about 10 months building the homes,� said Karen Flock, an employee of the Cabrillo agency and the project’s manager. “The husband and wife will probably do most of the work on the weekends.�

People’s Self-Help Housing of San Luis Obispo, a nonprofit agency working on the project, will provide a construction supervisor, who will direct groups of 10 families that are responsible for building 10 homes, said agency spokesman Leonard Roders. Each group works as a team, doing all but electrical and plumbing work on each of the 10 homes, he said.

The organization has completed 450 homes in similar projects in other parts of the state since its creation in 1970, Roders said.

“It’s really a grind to do your regular job and then put in another 40 hours of work on construction,� Roders said. “But, by the time they’ve finished, they have a lot of pride in their homes.�

The labor done by the families provides the equivalent of a down payment on the homes, which will be valued at about $65,000 each when completed, Roders said. The home mortgages will be financed by the Farmers Home Administration, a federal agency that will provide 32-year home loans at interest rates as low as 1%, he said.

The homes at Villa Campesina will have two to five bedrooms and average from 1,000 to 1,500 square feet, project officials said.

Families of four members cannot earn more than $29,350 a year to qualify for the housing program, Farmers Home Administration spokesman Logan H. Wilson said. Monthly mortgage payments, including taxes, will not exceed 20% of the family’s annual income, he said.

More than 200 area families have applied for acceptance into the housing program, project manager Flock said. Applications are still being taken, and final selection of the 62 families is expected later this spring, she said.

10-Acre Property

The 10-acre property south of Los Angeles Avenue and east of Liberty Bell Road was purchased from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles with $500,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant funds that were appropriated for the project by the City of Moorpark. Grading of the property is expected to begin in the next two weeks, project officials said.

Other private agencies contributing to the project include the Rosenberg Foundation of San Francisco, World Vision in Los Angeles and the United Way of Ventura County, project officials said.

Teresa Cortes, a Moorpark resident, is credited with initiating the project in 1981 while working as a volunteer for the United Farm Workers. At that time, local farm workers and their wives came to her asking about affordable housing in the Moorpark area, which is next to many large farms.

“I started asking people about how they think we could have housing here in Moorpark for low-income families,� Cortes said. “I have only one child, but other families had two, three and half a dozen children.�

Cortes began enlisting the help of others in the community and, in the process, began to learn the often complicated procedures of government grant programs. Soon, Cortes said, she realized that, for the project to work, “I had to learn to be very patient and not lose my common sense.�

City Councilman Clint Harper, who also served on the council when Cortes and others began asking for city help in the early 1980s, said he and other city officials were impressed by the tenacity of the group in seeking approval of the project.

“I had initially thought that there would be opposition to the project, but surprisingly it has been something that the community has supported almost unanimously,� Harper said. “What is so attractive is that the families are physically involved in constructing their homes. These are not people running around looking for a handout. They are willing to work for their home.�