Troubled Youth Build Homes for Lower Income Families

[missmanors]

In Santa Ana, California, local nonprofit organizations and municipal officials are joining together to help their community by setting up a program in which local youth who are former gang members, school drop-outs, recovering drug-users and those recently paroled, will be building three houses for some lucky first time homeowners in the area, who cannot afford the traditionally higher priced homes.

The neighborhood in which these houses will be built has been claimed by a gang for generations. This program is designed to help those former troubled youth by giving them the on-the-job education that could help them turn their lives around, while helping those area families that cannot afford to buy the high priced homes in the area.

The homes will be sold through a lottery for below current market prices, for as little as $160,000, with preference towards families that currently live or work in Santa Ana. Construction is planned to begin this fall of the three, bungalow-style homes which will have 3 or 4 bedrooms.

The city of Santa Ana has approved an agreement with the Orange County Community Housing Corp., which is a nonprofit organization that advocates for low-income housing. The agreement is for $1.5 million. Also helping with this project is Hope Builders, which is a construction company founded by a Santa Ana Catholic nonprofit which trains troubled youth in the fundamentals of construction and carpentry. There will be a crew of 6 graduates of Hope Builders 16-week training program that will carry out the work on this project, with ground-breaking to begin in October.

One 20 year old former gang member who has been hired to help with the project said, working on the project offers the workers a chance to work with people that were once enemies and others that he never thought he would get along with, giving them all a chance to change their lives. He went on to say that this is more important than just building a home, that it's a chance to give back to the community, giving a family the chance to live and grow and be happy.