Donation Drop Hurts Charity

When Habitat for Humanity broke ground on a 53-home project in Pacoima last November, organizers for the nonprofit group hoped to move needy families into the first 10 homes by this Christmas.

Today, though, the site remains mostly dirt, with only two houses framed out behind a chain-link fence. A late December move-in date is unlikely.

Clearing the trash-filled area took time, as did the permit process and compacting the earth to make it stable.

But a more serious and long-term problem took hold Sept. 11, when jets smashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Since then, donations to the local Habitat offices have all but stopped. Donors have called in to say they’re sending money they’d previously promised to Pacoima to New York, said Terri-Lei Robertson, Habitat’s executive director in the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys. She did not specify amounts, but said the end of the year would be “lean.�

Robertson sat in her trailer office on the Pacoima site recently and said it feels awkward to voice it, but, like other nonprofit fund-raisers nationwide, she’s scared.

She’s afraid people will forget about local needs in their desire to reach out to those in need across the country. “We can’t begrudge them by any means, but on the other hand, we’re wondering what we’re going to do,� she said.

With a striking view of the San Gabriels, the Pacoima project is wedged between ramshackle houses and an aging apartment complex. Roosters crow from a neighboring house. At night, gangs are active, residents say, but the Habitat community will be gated.

In this neighborhood, home to some of the city’s poorest families, the need for affordable housing only grows. Here, where many people live in garages or makeshift bedrooms on patios, more than 300 families have applied for the 53 homes.

One of the requirements is that each family includes a wage earner. The heartbreaking thing in Pacoima, volunteers who evaluate the applications said, is just how low the wages are.

In fact, many of those who apply for homes earn so little that, even with a steady job, they don’t make the salary minimum of just over $15,000 that Habitat requires. Habitat families aren’t given houses as gifts. Though the houses are sold to them at cost, the families must provide a small down payment, help build their homes and pay back an interest-free mortgage loan. The idea is to give what Habitat calls a “handup,� not a handout.

When Habitat for Humanity started building homes 25 years ago, an affiliate like the San Fernando Valley outfit might build one here, another there, a handful of houses a year.

These days, affordable housing is so scarce that more and more affiliates, particularly in urban areas, are building entire subdivisions when they can find the land. Recognizing the problem, the city of Los Angeles pitched in with its own no-interest loan to help Habitat get started in Pacoima.

On a recent morning, as he laid pipe for the first house on the lot, Frank DiDomenico, a retired plumber and the Pacoima project’s construction manager, stood in the sun, his weathered face shaded by the brim of an old straw hat, and shook his head. He said the pressing need he sees all around him sometimes overwhelms.

“We could build now until we die--until the year 3000 maybe--and we wouldn’t have enough houses for everyone,� he said.

A few miles southeast of the construction site, in Burbank, the Valdez family also worried about the bills this week. Felipe and Maria Valdez, approved in 1999 for one of the first 10 Pacoima homes, keep getting rent raises from their landlord. In March, the rent for the tiny, rundown one-bedroom apartment rose from $725 to $750. Next month the rent will go up to $775. Felipe Valdez, a welder in a furniture company, earns about $25,000 a year.

The couple have five children.

The four boys--two 5-year-old twins, a 10-year-old and a 4-year-old--share a bunk bed pushed up flush against the foot of their parents’ bed. Nancy Valdez, 15, lives in a nook little bigger than her bed just outside the bedroom. She’s already chosen the curtains for her room in the new house, as well as glow-in-the-dark stars to put on her very own ceiling.

The family shares one closet. The dresser in the shoe box of a living room is packed tight with children’s clothes.

A while back, the Valdezes gave the landlord notice, saying they’d be moving into their new four-bedroom home at the end of the year. Now, they’re nervous about what will happen when they ask to stay.

The Habitat staff member who was visiting her could make no guess about when the house, which has yet to be started, will be ready. When she heard that money was slow, since so many donations were going elsewhere, Maria Valdez shook her head and looked around her living room.

“Tu quieres tu casa, si?� she asked her smallest child, Kevin, holding him tight against her knees.

On Friday, with donations slow to come in, Habitat volunteers tried something new: a garage sale. On the dirt lot, they laid out tables, piled with clothes, shoes, old TVs, even a green, shiny prom gown.

“We have to do whatever we can do that doesn’t seem selfish in light on what’s going on across the country,� said Robertson, the executive director. “We have to find ways to keep building.�