American dream gets helping hand

Mathis Winkler

Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2001 | 11:05 a.m.

North Las Vegas residents Rochelle and Agustin Valadez are fixing up their home, and have a ways to go.

Some windows need blinds. Rugs would help, as would a washer and dryer. The quarter-acre back yard is dotted with piles of dead branches.

"We're gonna fix it up nice and put a little gate up front," said Rochelle Valadez, who moved into the $84,000 house on Samantha Court with her husband and her three children on Aug. 1.

Finding an affordable home was the tricky part, as the family gets by on about $25,000 a year that Augustin brings home from his job in room service at the MGM Grand.

It was tricky until the couple began talking to people at the North Las Vegas Housing Authority.

In January, the authority began selling the 43 homes it owns around the city to low-income families. The authority had previously rented the homes, and before the homes were put up for sale they were extensively renovated at a cost of about $300,000.

The $3 million expected to be generated from the sales will help pay for 75 homes the authority is planning to build near Carey Avenue and Commerce Street early next year. These homes, too, would be sold to low-income families.

The renovation and sales program, which gained approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is one of only a few in the country, said Gerry McNulty, who works as the authority's director of development and coordinates the sales.

All of the roughly 3,200 housing authorities around the nation can set up programs similar to the one in North Las Vegas. But a HUD spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said the authority's decision to sell the houses was a "bold step" because HUD gives authorities no extra money to fix up the homes before they are sold.

"There aren't a lot (of housing authorities) that are doing it," said the spokeswoman, who asked not to be named. "If the North Las Vegas Housing Authority is saying that they are unique at that, they're on to something. They're considered among the few."

The Las Vegas Housing Authority plans to follow North Las Vegas' lead and is waiting for HUD approval to begin selling its 250 houses. Laura McGee, the authority's director of operations, said her agency plans on selling the homes gradually as current residents move out.

In North Las Vegas, buyers have to come up with 1 percent of the price and qualify for a mortgage. They also can't sell the home for five years to prevent profiteering.

"We sell the houses to people who really want to buy a house for the first time," McNulty said.

Authority officials bought the houses about 13 years ago and rented them to low-income families. That program, set up to move people out of apartment complexes, backfired, McNulty said.

Unlike most homeowners, the tenants didn't take care of the houses.

"They just destroyed the homes," McNulty said.

Rochelle Valadez didn't know about the renovation plans when she first looked at her new home.

"I told my real estate agent, 'If you show me another junkyard, I'll quit,' " she said. "The cupboard doors in the kitchen were hanging off the hinges. It smelled so bad. The bathroom had burn marks all over the sink. It was so gross."

Although authority officials assured Valadez they'd clean up the mess, she didn't want to take any chances.

In July, while workers put in new bathroom and kitchen cabinets and painted the walls, "I came every day and prayed on the house," she said. "This was God touching their hearts. I can't believe they spent that much money."

As for the tenants, authority officials first offered the houses to them. But only three families met all the requirements. The others received rent vouchers and the authority paid for their moving expenses.

So far, 18 homes have been sold, including the home sold to the Valadez family and a home sold to former tenants. Another 18 are in escrow. Buyers for the remaining seven homes still have to be found. But that shouldn't be a problem, said Kathy Arrington, a real estate broker who is helping the authority with the sales.

"If we had 500 houses to sell, we could sell them overnight" because of a tight market for low-income housing, she said.

To prevent the new homeowners from repeating the same mistakes tenants made when they lived in the houses, authority officials require them to take a training course to learn the basics of maintaining a home.

Such training is crucial to help families with their new responsibilities as homeowners, said Michael A. Stegman, a professor at the University of North Carolina who has written extensively about housing issues.

"It takes more than just a sale to assure success," said Stegman, who also served as HUD assistant secretary for policy development and research during the Clinton administration.

But there's no reason why low-income families can't make it as homeowners, Stegman said.

"If families know what they get into, if there are no major (maintenance) problems, if the houses are in neighborhoods that are not the worst, there's no reason why they can't be successful homeowners," he said.

Rochelle and Agustin said they've been doing fine so far.

"We have to pay for water and sewer," said Rochelle. "That's the only thing that's different."

That and all the extra space.

Charmine, 10, Agustin Jr., 3, and Maria, 1, now all have their own bedrooms. Agustin can park the cars he buys and fixes up behind the house.

"There's no one to tell us what we can do," Rochelle said, adding that the couple has big plans for the back yard. They want fruit trees and a pool, a little garden area and a patio.

"We're going to make a map," she said. "I want it to be perfect."