President Carter’s legacy lives on in the lives of Habitat for Humanity homeowners in Orange County
Angela Booth was on the verge of homelessness and losing custody of her three children.
Absent child support from her children’s father, the working single mother couldn’t keep up with a barrage of exorbitant medical bills to pay for chronic surgeries, trips to the hospital and other healthcare needs for her 6-year-old.
Booth needed to catch a break, she said. Then, she got one.
“Sometimes you can do it on your own, but sometimes you need a helping hand,” she said.
For Booth, that helping hand was that of Habitat for Humanity, led by the advocacy of the late former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn.
Since 1988, Habitat for Humanity of Orange County has built 239 affordable homes in 17 Orange County cities. Its first, and one of its largest projects to date, was Carino Vista, a community of 48 condos in Rancho Santa Margarita.
The Carters, tireless Habitat for Humanity fundraisers and volunteers, not only attended the Carino Vista groundbreaking ceremony in 1990, but they also spent the day laboring at the site and talking with the families moving into those homes, including the Booths.
“Carino Vista certainly put Habitat for Humanity of Orange County on the affordable housing map,” said Chris Georgieff, chief communications officer for the Orange County nonprofit. “Not only the scale of the project but having the support of such an influential person who gave so much in support of safe and affordable housing.”
Booth said she remembers the Carters’ kindness to her when they met.
“Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter had a way of seeing the whole picture of people,” Booth said. “They knew people were willing to work and wanted a better life but sometimes just needed a hand.”
Carino Vista opened a year after that groundbreaking ceremony.
Booth, 61, has lived in her home there ever since. It’s where her children grew up and were schooled in Rancho Santa Margarita before heading to college.
“My children are solid,” she said. “They got good degrees. They’re successful in life.”
“Without my Habitat home, I really don’t know what would have happened,” she added. “There was just too much against me.”
Habitat for Humanity homebuyers invest what the organization calls “sweat equity” to help purchase their homes from the nonprofit. They have to help construct, renovate or repair their homes to qualify for a low-interest mortgage to pay for it.
Carter championed that hands-on affordable housing model because of the camaraderie and equality it fostered between the homeowner and the nonprofit.
“Habitat has successfully removed the stigma of charity by substituting it with a sense of partnership,” Carter said. His quote remains prominently displayed on Habitat for Humanity’s website.
After his presidency, he and Rosalynn volunteered with Habitat for Humanity across the U.S. and around the world for more than 30 years, working alongside more than 108,000 volunteers to build or repair more than 4,400 homes in 14 countries.
Of those, Carino Vista was a notable project for helping to get Habitat for Humanity of Orange County off the ground with a large affordable housing project on what was then unincorporated land in south Orange County, an affluent area that, to this day, has unmet affordable housing needs. Rancho Santa Margarita, which was incorporated in the year 2000 and has about 46,000 residents, must plan for an additional 329 low-income and very-low-income housing units by the end of the decade, according to a state housing mandate.
“When President Carter and Rosalynn Carter came and invested their labor to assist on this project, it was a landmark moment for Habitat for Humanity Orange County and also for those families who were able to benefit from the project and enjoy the realization of homeownership in such a unique and spirited way,” said Gaddi Vasquez, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations agencies based in Rome, Italy. In 1990, he served as an Orange County supervisor.
“For me, as an elected official with the responsibility for land use decisions in that area at that time, seeing this come to fruition was a distinct honor, and it resulted in a great benefit to the community at large,” Vasquez said.
Barbara Thomas and Kate Keena had a brother, Jim Thomas, who moved into a Carino Vista apartment with his wife in 1991.
Although the family was raised on the other side of the political aisle as Carter, they admired his humanitarian work, Keena said.
“It was very inspiring to see that side of him and what he brought to the country as far as his attitude, that it doesn’t matter who you are, you roll up your sleeves and get work done,” Keena said.
Since their brother was a quadriplegic, the sisters and their family contributed to the 600 construction hours he needed to qualify for the home.
“That’s a real commitment, 600 hours,” Thomas said. “That was everything from hammering nails to painting walls to working with drywall, you name it,” she said. “All that work made us feel like the home became part of us, part of our family.”
The low-interest loan for the home enabled her brother and his wife to afford to start a family together, Thomas said.
“They saved up, moved on and had a son,” Thomas said. “It was very inspiring.”
Nearly 35 years after the Carters broke ground on Carino Vista, many of the original homeowners have moved on or, like Jim Thomas, have passed on.
But several, including Booth and neighbor Santos Najar, remain.
“For a full year, I worked six days a week at my job and then spent the seventh day here building my home,” Najar, a hotel worker, said.
“So, for a full year while we built Carino Vista, I never got a day off,” he said. “But, it was worth it.”
Najar, a first-generation immigrant from Mexico, sent four children to college, each of whom was raised in his Carino Vista home in Rancho Santa Margarita.
“To not have to worry about my mortgage payment because the rate here was low, that gave me the chance to put my kids through college,” he said. “And they made it.”
Over the years, Booth has seen neighbors move away and new ones move in. Recently, seeing her new neighbors next door come home with a baby born over the holidays has given her pleasure.
“That’s another young child that’ll grow up in a solid home near really good schools,” she said.
“A Habitat home is bigger than just putting a roof over your head,” she added. “It’s a future for your children. It’s stability.”
