For the last four years, Edgar Ruano and his wife, Carolina Morales, have slept on the pullout sofa bed in the living room of their one-bedroom Bellflower apartment. They reserved their only bedroom for their two children.
But today they will begin building a three-bedroom, 2 1/2 -bath home in San Pedro through Habitat for Humanity's Jimmy Carter Work Project.
"Finally, we will have a place of our own and for our children to have a shot at the future," said Ruano, a 38-year-old mattress factory worker.
The family's mortgage, plus taxes and insurance, will be about $700 -- about the same as their rent now.
"It has been very hard to share a one-bedroom apartment for the four of us, but when I went to look for houses to buy and I saw the prices, it was ridiculous," said Ruano, who emigrated from El Salvador in 1989.
His family is one of dozens that will have new homes by Friday. The Jimmy Carter Work Project, which aims to build houses in a different city each year, will build 30 town houses and rehabilitate 70 more in the San Pedro and South Los Angeles areas in five days.
Los Angeles was selected because of its acute shortage of affordable housing, said Jonathan Reckford, chief executive of Habitat International.
It's "as tough a place as anywhere in the United States for a family of low to moderate income to find decent, affordable housing," he said.
According to Habitat International, 1.6 billion people need affordable housing worldwide, including 6 million in the United States. In Los Angeles County, about a quarter of all families of four earn $20,000 to $40,000 a year. In a market where the median home price is about $535,000, that income level puts owning a home out of reach.
"As the costs have gone up in our market, more and more people are renting," said Erin Rank, president of Habitat for Humanity Greater Los Angeles. "So the families who are earning lower-than-average incomes are forced to live in one-bedroom or illegally converted units. They are having to make decisions between paying for food or medical costs or paying for housing."
On hand to help build the houses will be a few dozen celebrities, including Patricia Arquette, Garth Brooks, Ricky Martin, Barry Pepper and Trisha Yearwood, according to event organizers.
Former President Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, attended a kickoff celebration Sunday at the Port of Los Angeles.
