Habitat for Humanity celebrates 30 years in Fresno

Choua Vang remembers the first night her family slept in the new southwest Fresno home they built nearly eight years ago through Habitat for Humanity.

Vang, the oldest of nine children, finally got her own room at age 21. Her brother got one, too, while the younger sisters shared. A Habitat housing coordinator and her husband donated new beds to the family, but the big living room in the five-bedroom home was the most inviting.

“We all grabbed pillows and blankets and slept in the living room for the first two nights,” Vang said. “We were so excited.”

The Vangs are one of 129 Fresno County families that have achieved the American dream of owning a home with the help of Habitat for Humanity Fresno County. The Christian housing ministry this month is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

Habitat Fresno is one of about 1,400 branches across the country and 70 organizations worldwide working to build, rehabilitate and repair homes for needy families. Since the recession, it has become one of the agency’s leading offices to tackle neighborhood revitalization.

On Oct. 21, Habitat will celebrate 30 years of building homes and revitalizing communities with a dinner at the Clovis Veterans Memorial Building.

“They’re a very strong affiliate,” said Sue Henderson, vice president of U.S. operations for Habitat International in Atlanta. “I think what distinguishes them today and over the past few years is their commitment to revitalizing blighted neighborhoods.”

Their success also lies in solid leadership and community support, Henderson said.

The international nonprofit housing ministry was founded in 1976 by former millionaire Millard Fuller and his wife Linda Fuller to address a need for safe and affordable housing. The concept was simple: build houses using volunteer labor and donations.

Homeowners would invest their own time, or sweat equity, to help build their house. They would pay a no-interest, affordable monthly mortgage that would go into a revolving fund to help pay for the construction of another new home.

Social worker Jackie Holmes founded the Fresno office in 1985 after returning from a trip to volunteer on a Habitat project in Tucson, Ariz., with a youth group from then-College Community Congregational Church. The pastor, the Rev. Jack Takayanagi, served on Habitat’s national board of directors.

For Holmes, Habitat was about “building community, building relationships, bringing people together who wouldn’t otherwise be in a relationship and helping them work on this good and right project,” she said.

The youth group, moved by the experience, raised $600 by putting on a play to help start Habitat in Fresno. Holmes served as the unpaid volunteer director working to connect with community agencies, businesses and other donors with needy families.

“I was brought up in substandard housing,” Holmes said. “I knew people in expensive, affluent housing. I understand from the very beginning that decent housing is a good and decent and worthy goal.”

Habitat Fresno set out to build three houses a year in Fresno and Clovis. The first home was built on Laurel Avenue in southeast Fresno, near the Walmart Supercenter, for Cambodian refugee Kim Chea and his family. The mortgage on the home was paid off in 2005 and the family sold the home, Holmes said. Chea died last year.

In 1992, farmer Ed O’Neill donated 17.5 acres in southwest Fresno, at Jensen and Fruit avenues, for a new subdivision. Habitat built 89 homes in the Crossroads development. Self-Help Enterprises, a Visalia-based affordable housing developer, built 20 houses in the neighborhood.

Vang, her siblings, her father and grandparents were one of the last families picked to build a home in Crossroads.

The family moved from apartment to apartment and rented a house in west Fresno that wasn’t insulated well. The heater didn’t work and the rooms were cold, Vang said. Her father, who was helping a friend build a Habitat home, decided it was time to apply for their own house. Their application was accepted on the second try.

Homeownership was a dream that would not have been possible without Habitat, said Vang, who later served on the board directors and continues to volunteer with the agency. “My dad was working two jobs, and I was working,” she said. “We couldn’t afford to buy a house.”

Tony Miranda, who served four years as the volunteer coordinator, became the local agency’s second director when Holmes retired in 2001. He finished the Crossroads project and led the group through its major growth period.

Under Miranda’s leadership, the budget grew from $238,000 to just over $2 million and the staff increased in size from one full-time and one part-time employee to 11 full-time and seven part-time workers. The builder’s home count increased from three a year up to eight annually.

Over the last three decades, Habitat has served 155 families. It built 129 houses, rehabilitated eight and has four under construction. The group also built ramps and handrails at 14 existing homes for the handicapped and elderly. And it continues revitalization efforts in the neighborhoods where it built homes, helping to install the Almy Street Playground in southwest Fresno, community gardens in west Fresno and solar panels on 95 homes.

In 2007, the agency opened a retail outlet called ReStore to sell new and gently used building materials at discount prices. The proceeds help support the construction of Habitat homes.

“Habitat been a light to the community,” Miranda said. “We’ve been a place that really did help Fresno families get a foothold out of poverty, a place where people could give of themselves and grow and flourish. My prayer is that people are blessed by the work.”

Miranda left in April to take the top job at the Bakersfield Habitat affiliate. Matthew Grundy from Rancho Cucamonga is now leading the Fresno office into a new phase of its housing mission.

Grundy plans to unveil details of his plan for the future of Habitat Fresno at the anniversary dinner, but shared part of his vision.

“We have done a phenomenal job over the last 30 years building homes and in the more recent years played a more vital role in neighborhood revitalization, which is essentially the second component” of Habitat’s mission, Grundy said. “I really want to take the community component a step further.”

This story was originally published October 3, 2015 at 9:42 AM with the headline "Habitat for Humanity celebrates 30 years in Fresno."