To earn a living for his family, Juan Barcenas left his home in Michoacan, Mexico in 1985 to work in peach, cherry and apple orchards across California, Oregon and Washington.

Over the next 15 years, he followed the crop harvests, living in the sparse housing provided for farm workers, returning home only when the picking season ended.

Today Barcenas, his wife and five children are among 40 families whose dream of living together in a home of their own is being realized through Mercy Housing California’s Mutual Self-Help Housing program.

During a groundbreaking ceremony for Mercy Housing’s Peach Tree subdivision in Live Oak in July, Greg Sparks, vice president of Mercy Housing, congratulated the Barcenas family and other new home owners gathered for the event.

“This is the beginning of a great journey,” said Sparks as he looked out over land that would become 40 single-family homes constructed for and by low-income, first-time home owners. “This is truly a village coming together to build the village.”

The Peach Tree project is one of several affordable housing projects for families and seniors offered by Mercy Housing California’s office in West Sacramento. The subdivision requires participating families to provide a minimum of 40 hours of labor each week in addition to their full-time jobs.

Financing for the Mercy Housing project is supported by Wells Fargo Bank, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development and the city of Live Oak’s Home Community Development Block Grant.

A national housing organization which to date has completed more than 2,800 single-family self-help homes statewide, Mercy Housing requires that to qualify for the self-help program participants earn a minimum income of $22,000 and possess good credit.

Irene Lopez, Mercy Housing community loan specialist, said that the Peach Tree project has had “a tremendous response” at a time when meeting the financial criteria for home ownership is daunting.

“This is an awesome opportunity for people,” said Lopez, who explained that the high cost of home ownership has not bypassed the Live Oak area.

She explained that in addition to a collaborative approach to financing, the mandatory minimum labor commitment of 40 hours per family is crucial to the success of self-help housing projects. While families set their own schedules, work on the weekends is mandatory.

“They get down and dirty and do the work,” Lopez said. “They do about 65 percent of the labor, anything from roofing and some plumbing to raising the walls.”

Peach Tree subdivision homes, which are constructed to the same standards and quality as contractor built homes, feature three or four bedrooms, two baths and two-car garages.

Sparks said that the Peach Tree project is making purchasing a home even more affordable because the city of Live Oak is providing special financing for families making as little as $20,000 a year. In fact, eight of 20 lots have now been purchased by farm worker families such as Barcenas.

Dulce Barcenas, who is attending Yuba College, has been involved in collaboration of her own. More than once during the application process to qualify for a Peach Tree home, Barcenas completed paperwork when her father was in Oregon picking cherries.

“My father didn’t have any hope to own a home because he didn’t have the income,” said Barcenas, who is enjoying seeing her father live out his dream. “His hope has been to make a better life for his family.”

In addition to providing labor, Mercy Housing’s Self-Help program requires families to attend a series of meetings prior to the start of construction where they receive financial counseling and instruction on the responsibilities of home ownership.

Families also attend evening social gatherings where they begin forming a bond as neighbors.

“For the majority of them that bond continues to grow,” Sparks said. “They set up co-ops, share baby sitting responsibilities, and by the end of the building process they’ve provide support for one another that continues as the neighborhood grows.”

Mercy Housing is now accepting applications for 10 remaining lots in the 40-unit Peach Tree subdivision in Live Oak. For more information, call (916) 414-4400.

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