The Completion of Self-Help Housing

 

My job was done. Day by day the families kept up the work to finish their houses. The City kept paying the interest on the construction loan. The opposition group kept plotting my demise, and Dan, the Director of the City Department was leaving. His division gave him a farewell party, and I was told they were afraid I would show up to celebrate. I didn’t know he took it so personally, but then, after all, he had set the FBI on us. I always wondered how the FBI could be so easily manipulated.

I had received a call from a family member in another state asking if I could visit and help with some family matters. I did, and while there, I applied for a job and was hired to start within a month.

Only within weeks of completion, knowing now that things would end up just right, I got the Self-Help Housing families together, to let them know I was leaving. I told them. “After the final touches, you are all ready to apply for your loans and take over your houses. Your new loan will pays the construction cost, and the title will be placed in your name. Rather than rent, you’ll have a mortgage. Don’t forget to save for the once per year taxes and insurance.” They knew all that. They were now more sophisticated than when starting, and so was I. We all shared more knowledge and more power!

I had become very attached to this group. They had shown they would back each other up throughout any difficulties.

Then we did the transfer of title with the first three families. Larry Lucero as TBA Chairman would do the rest. I touched base with all the people that were important to me, sold my dear yellow and black Power Wagon pickup, rolled up my sleeping bag, still on foam on the floor, left the foam behind, sent all my boxes by mail, and took a plane to my new home. I would never sleep on foam and plywood again. Just before I left, Charlene’s friend, Isabel, now 18, came by to say goodbye. She asked, “Can I kiss you on the lips just this one time?” I answered, “Of course!” I knew she would do well. So would all the others. The wind blows on through the Barrio, time moves on, and it is not important that the people remember me, only that they make good use of what they had in front of them, and the chance to be happy. I know I am. Like I said, I am a very happy man.

Smiling ear to ear, I sat one last time on the familiar curb by the corner of Cushing Street and Convent Avenue looking down the street as I had done ten years before. The heat of the cement filtered through my pants roasting my butt, while I saw young people walking to and from, kids playing basketball on the street, and teenagers playing a game of horseshoes in an empty lot. An elderly lady with a child was slowly approaching me. Señora Sanchez waved at me as I stood up to let her by. Her granddaughter was carrying flowers “for my mother” she told me with a smile. I recognized the girl as the smaller sister of Pepito, one of the workers in the rehab crew. I had seen this girl’s older sister on this same corner coming back from the same school ten years ago.

“Granma, can we go and play in the park?”

“How is the roof on your house?” I asked the lady as they paused momentarily.

“Strong and dry,” she said, “Pepito is still very proud of it.”

“Well, he should be. He was the hardest worker of them all.”

The old lady smiled with pride, and the little girl giggled. On my way to have lunch at El Minuto, two blocks away, I realized that I saw hardly any collapsed walls or broken-down roofs, nor trash or papers on the sidewalk. There were still some empty lots with mounds of dirt, but most walls were freshly painted, doors secured, and windows clean.

I remember with a flash the feeling of hopelessness that I had experienced halfway through the first Barrio group with the project of Creative Teen Power, when I did not understand their cultural motivations, and how those same youths with their peers had finally been the ones to turn this Neighborhood around. 

Never, never, never give up!

Long ago maybe others, not me, may have been afraid to walk down this street of this Barrio, but today nobody would. A wonderful and potent Barrio, a better world to live in. Individuals doing the right thing have world power.