null

YouthBuild Helps Family Achieve Dream of Home Ownership

Students learn while helping Habitat for Humanity build homes in Dream Creek

STOCKTON – For Grace Esquivel, a single mother raising two children, the idea that she could one day own a home seemed like just a dream.

Every time she went to the bank to try and get a home loan, her income from her job at a local charity was never enough to qualify. “Even when I had savings, it still wasn’t enough,” she said.

 But her luck changed.

 She recently received the keys to a new home built by Habitat for Humanity of San Joaquin volunteers and students in the San Joaquin County Office of Education’s YouthBuild San Joaquin program.  For her part, Esquivel put in hours of “sweat equity” working on the home, one of 19 homes in Dream Creek, an ongoing project of Habitat for Humanity of San Joaquin.

 “The homes are the result of the community coming together. It’s really a blessing,” Esquivel said. “Dreams do come true.”

 She received the keys to her dream home in an April Key Dedication ceremony and house-warming party, joined by volunteers, students and supporters in the community.

 The partnership between Habitat for Humanity and YouthBuild provides students a way to receive hands-on-experience that will prepare them to join the San Joaquin County workforce and embark on their new careers. It lines up with the purpose of YouthBuild to give students a second chance at success, teaching them a trade and helping to connect them to good-paying jobs through partnerships with the labor and business communities.

 But it does more than that, YouthBuild San Joaquin Director Sheilah Goulart said. “There are a lot of programs out there that teach job skills that help a young person get their high school diploma. But they don’t focus on the leadership-development qualities. They don’t focus on what students can do to give back to their own community,” she said. “That’s what is so powerful about YouthBuild. They get this opportunity to give back, and that resonates with them for the rest of their lives.”

 Habitat for Humanity offers a hand up, not a handout, to families who can’t afford a home on the open market, Executive Director Michael Huber said. “We at Habitat for Humanity of San Joaquin are dedicated to building beautiful, safe and affordable homes for well-qualified, lower-income families to buy.”

 The YouthBuild students working with the organization have shown a willingness to both learn and work, Habitat for Humanity Construction Manager George Koertzen said. “It has been a real joy having the students from YouthBuild working at our jobsite,” he said. “It is especially gratifying to have students return with a grateful attitude for what they have had an opportunity to learn.”

 YouthBuild student Roosevelt Webb said the program changed his life.

 “The best part about it is getting a chance to go to work and school at the same time and actually learning a trade, and actually getting to do something with that trade,” he said.

 

For more information about the partnership between YouthBuild San Joaquin and Habitat for Humanity of San Joaquin, please click here to watch this new video.

To read a story in The Record about the welcome received by Grace Esquivel and her two children, please click here.

Posted: 4/24/2015