Making homes more than just luck

Deirdre Newman

Mayela Razo was born on Tuesday the 13th in Mexico, a day whose luck

is equivalent to Friday the 13th here, she said. The divorced mother

of four said she has felt unlucky most of the time.

But her luck changed when representatives of Habitat for Humanity

came to her mobile home in Santa Ana last year and told her that her

family had been accepted for a Habitat house. The Christian based,

nonprofit organization builds homes for low-income families, usually

requiring the recipients to put in a little sweat-equity and help

with the construction.

“When the [representatives] came to my house, I said, ‘can I hug

you?’” Razo said. “It’s very important to have faith.”

Saturday, construction started on Razo’s house at a property on

Pomona Street that will eventually contain six homes.

And Razo was there, hammering away on the house’s frame, along

with other volunteers.

Groundbreaking on the Pomona Street property started in January.

Habitat for Humanity staff and volunteers originally intended to

renovate the existing houses on the property, but they turned out to

be so infested with termites that it was more cost-effective to tear

them down and start from scratch, said volunteer Jerome Blackman.

Construction on the new houses started in March. The first house

to be completed, in the back of the property, was sponsored by the

Home Depot and has been finished already.

Razo’s house started taking shape today and, in the next few

weeks, construction on the other homes will begin as well, Blackman

said.

Another home recipient, Walter Bernard, was also helping to raise

the walls on Razo’s home. Bernard lives with his wife and

four-year-old son in a one-bedroom apartment.

“It’s really great to see the cooperation of everyone working

together,” Bernard said.

In addition to the home recipients, volunteers from all parts of

Orange County came to lend a helping hand, like Nisreen Malhis, a

member of the Palestinian Women’s Organization, based in Irvine.

“This is my first day,” Malhis said. “I’m so happy. I enjoy the

diversity of this organization.”

Volunteer Brooke Tyson urged anyone with an interest in helping

others to come out and join the construction effort.

“If everybody came out for one day, we can change the world by

putting people in their own house,” she said.