Effective Tri-Cities Program Helps Poor Build, Own Houses

KENNEWICK - All the comforts of home were darn few when Guillermo Castaneda was growing up in Trinidad, Colo.

His family's two-bedroom house was home to his parents and their nine children. They managed without running water or electricity. An outhouse stood outside the backdoor.

Fifty years later, Castaneda has helped 64 low-income families - through La Clinica's self-help housing program - build homes that are luxurious by the standards of his childhood.

Those modern, well-equipped homes stand in Basin City, Connell, Pasco and Sunnyside. Another 24 are under construction in Kennewick, Benton City and Grandview.

Castaneda, executive director of La Clinica's Community Health Center in Pasco, received a national award in December in Washington, D.C., for the success of the 5-year-old program.

"In the 25 years I've been working in health clinics, I've seen a lot of poor conditions," Castaneda said. "We saw this vision and started to set up the program. We kept pushing through with the idea until we were successful."

He was one of three people to accept the Skip Jason Award given by the federal Housing Assistance Council. Robert "Skip" Jason was a housing activist and the council's government-services director until he died of a heart attack in 1982.

Castaneda's award came with a $1,500 check. He's planning to donate $500 to Columbia Basin Domestic Violence and $500 to Casa Hogar, a Hispanic-women's organization in Yakima.

The rural-housing program is open to families that earn $10,000 to $21,000 a year and can't afford to buy a home. They obtain a 33-year, $60,000 to $65,000 mortgage, with the loan proceeds used to buy a vacant lot and construction materials and to pay insurance and taxes.

Then, the successful applicants have to build their own homes.

A family member joins a team of eight, who build eight homes, with each contributing 35 hours a week for the construction work, he said.

About $175,000 a year comes from the Department of Rural Development to pay the six staff members, including the housing director, clerical workers and construction supervisors.

The Housing Assistance Council, Federal Home Loan Bank in Seattle and the Housing Trust Fund each contribute $50,000 to help pay for the lots and construction supplies.

"The good thing is that this (program) shows people how to work safely and how to use saws and hammers," Castaneda said. "And they do all the work themselves."

Sixty-five percent of the work has to be done by the families. The other 35 percent is done by local companies, which install the electricity and plumbing and lay the foundations.

The same rules apply to families in an urban self-help housing program. In that program, the money comes from local banks like Yakima Federal Savings and Key Bank.

Families earning between $16,000 and $35,000 a year are eligible for the urban-housing program. They have 30 years to pay off a $65,000 mortgage from the banks.

Yakima Federal in Pasco paid $520,000 to build eight homes in Pasco two years ago. Key Bank in Kennewick is paying an identical amount to build eight homes in Kennewick that will be finished in March.

And now, Roy Rodriguez, who was living paycheck to paycheck, has a three-bedroom house in east Pasco.

Rodriguez, 32, started working with the housing program in December 1993 as a group coordinator. When he didn't qualify for federal housing programs, he turned to the urban-housing program.

His group broke ground in March 1997 and moved into their houses in December 1997.

"This has been a booster to my self-esteem," Rodriguez said. "We are finally at a different level than we were at before, and we're actually living the American dream."