Posted on 12/27/2003 5:33:43 PM PST by Miss Marple
Guy and Leslie Camara had high hopes when they moved to their new Habitat for Humanity home in Barrington Gardens five years ago.
They envisioned a place where their children could romp in their own yard, with a mortgage they could afford on Guy's income as an independent video and film producer.
Instead, Guy Camara says, "It's almost like we got a first-class ticket to a ghetto."
Seven years after Habitat officials launched the only sizable Indiana subdivision made up exclusively of Habitat homes, Barrington Gardens is an experiment some residents say is struggling.
Four of the original 47 families have moved out or are trying to sell their homes -- a rate nearly eight times the norm for a local affiliate of the non-profit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry.
Residents like the Camaras say the subdivision's new, vinyl-clad houses and multicolored playground mask an undercurrent of more unsavory elements: crime that has made the neighborhood far from an ideal place to raise children, and declining property values that mean many residents owe more on their homes than they are worth.
"The house looks great, but it is not worth anything because of where it is located," said Camara, whose family in 1998 moved into a home sponsored by Oprah Winfrey and built by volunteers from Kroger.
Habitat officials acknowledge that the neighborhood isn't perfect. But they say the development has lifted many families out of substandard living conditions, enabling them to fulfill their dreams of home ownership, while helping revitalize the Eastside neighborhood.
"I think Barrington Gardens turned out pretty well," said Jeffry Carter, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Indianapolis. "When you drive around that neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods, those houses look pretty good."
Humble beginnings
The Habitat program is designed to help low-income people buy homes, which supporters maintain has both personal and societal benefits in the effort to address poverty.
Habitat buyers can purchase homes essentially at cost -- working side by side with civic and religious groups to provide the necessary labor. They also can get interest-free loans, so all their payments go toward the principal, helping them build wealth.
To put Barrington Gardens in its proper perspective, Habitat officials say you have to consider what preceded it north of the intersection of Perkins Avenue and Raymond Street.
In the early 1950s, the Perkins Courts apartment complex -- a collection of two-story structures containing 176 rental units -- was built on the site.
Over the years, the apartments, overrun by crime and abandoned properties, fell into disrepair. Attempts to rejuvenate them and the surrounding area failed. By the mid-1980s, fewer than 50 of the apartments were occupied.
A final attempt to revive the complex by a group of local investors -- who planned to convert the apartments to low-cost condominiums -- was hailed by former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp as an urban renewal model for other cities to follow.
But the project stalled in bankruptcy in 1991, paving the way for the land to be cleared and donated to Habitat.
Habitat of Greater Indianapolis built 76 homes from 1987 to 1995. Most were on vacant lots in existing neighborhoods.
Barrington Gardens was the first time Habitat had built a large subdivision from the ground up in Indiana. At the time, variations on the approach were catching on across the country.
Former Habitat Executive Director Kevin O'Brien said then that the 47-lot development would help Habitat step up its pace of home construction and provide the efficiencies of a large-scale, centralized project.
The Rev. Tommy Hines, pastor of Bethany Missionary Baptist Church on Raymond Street, maintains to this day that Barrington Gardens is a ray of hope in the area.
"The Habitat project has been a tremendous asset to our community," Hines said.
Iris Joiner, who has lived in Barrington Gardens for three years, agrees.
"I feel like this was a good opportunity -- a blessing for my family," Joiner said. "I like the neighborhood. Every neighborhood is going to have its problems, but I don't feel like this is a bad neighborhood."
Differing opinions
The Camaras and others knew about past problems in the neighborhood before they moved in, but they said Habitat officials assured them they would remain actively involved in the community, transforming the troubled area into a beacon of hope.
Guy Camara said that didn't happen: "Habitat basically walked away after the houses were built."
Amy Honeycutt D'Aquila, who moved into a Barrington Gardens home in 1998, shares that feeling.
"Habitat didn't help make it what they said it would be," she said.
She blames much of the problem on turnover in the group's staff.
The project was started under the leadership of O'Brien, who was replaced in 1998 by Diana Rice-Wilkerson. Carter replaced Rice-Wilkerson, who left in 2001.
"After a while, no one in the office knew us. The people who started the project with us were all gone," D'Aquila said.
"No one was aware of promises that had been made, and there was very little follow-up. The original goal was to make a community and make it a success. But they lost sight of that."
Carter, who was not with Habitat at the time Barrington Gardens was developed, acknowledged that there are areas in which the agency probably could have done better. But he said some complaints are unavoidable.
"You are going to have some problems anywhere. And by the nature of what we do, we are going into neighborhoods that aren't the best," he said.
"Nobody is offering us land at 116th Street in Carmel."
Community building
The Camaras, D'Aquila and others say they tried to make a community out of the homes clustered around two cul-de-sacs.
They started a neighborhood association, put on vacation Bible school programs and hosted block parties.
Guy Camara helped children fix their bicycles and provided "the neighborhood plunger" to assist residents with clogged drains.
But the efforts often sparked backlash, particularly when residents or neighborhood children were confronted about problems.
A spray of small holes in the vinyl siding and a bedroom window of Camara's home is a reminder of a run-in with a troublesome youth, who turned a pellet gun on the family's home.
It wasn't the only shooting in the neighborhood.
Last New Year's Eve, six people police identified as rival drug dealers exchanged more than 50 shots on a street within yards of Dean White's home.
The melee, which took place in the middle of the afternoon, left one man dead and four wounded.
Police have been called to Barrington Gardens more than 190 times since Jan. 1, 2000, for a variety of runs ranging from the investigation of domestic disturbances to fights, thefts and a drug overdose and to serve warrants.
But Indianapolis Police Department Officer Tony Kelly, who has worked in the area for about 10 years, said he thought crime in the immediate area had gone down since the Barrington Gardens homes were built.
"People who are moving in there are taking more responsibility because they own the homes," Kelly said.
Still, it's gotten to be too much for some residents.
"We don't feel safe letting our kids play in their own yard," said White, whose son was shot with a BB gun while playing outside his home. "We feel like we are stuck in a neighborhood where we don't want to live."
Ties that bind
D'Aquila was the first to leave. In 2002, she gave up about $10,000 in equity she had built up in the home, which was sponsored by The Indianapolis Star, and turned it back over to Habitat.
"It got to the point that I hated being there. It was not the kind of place that I wanted to raise my kids," said D'Aquila, who now lives in Louisiana.
The Camaras put their home up for sale in May.
The 1,872-square-foot, two-story home was appraised at $75,000 when it was built. It was one of two homes in the subdivision that was customized for a larger family. The Camaras tried to sell it for $59,900.
"If it were in another part of town, $70,000 would be a piece of cake to get," said their real estate agent, Jeff Davies.
Making it even harder to sell was a $9,300 second mortgage issued by Habitat to cover the difference between the $65,700 the Camaras paid and the appraised value.
A portion of that mortgage is forgiven each year over the life of the original loan. Families don't have to pay anything on the second mortgage unless they try to sell the home before the first mortgage is retired -- 16 years, in the Camaras'case.
The purpose is to prevent families from turning around and selling their Habitat homes for a quick profit, Carter said.
But, in reality, the second mortgage ties many Habitat families to their homes for years.
Carter said about a dozen of the 247 families that have bought Habitat homes in the Indianapolis area have resold them -- primarily because their fragile economic situations leave them few options to make conventional home purchases.
Addressing concerns
Carter said Habitat is taking steps to address the concerns raised in Barrington Gardens.
Habitat is putting more emphasis on classes to prepare new homeowners for dealing with issues such as starting neighborhood associations, he said. Habitat plans to help Barrington Gardens residents revive their neighborhood association next month.
While Carter doesn't rule out another Habitat-only subdivision, he said the organization more likely will pursue projects that involve a mix of Habitat and market homes.
"If you put in all new homeowners, it takes longer to get a neighborhood going," he said.
The changes will come too late for the Camaras.
Earlier this month, they packed up their nine children and possessions and moved to a home they bought in Washington Township.
The Camaras finally found a buyer for their Barrington Gardens home just days before they moved. The couple will close on the sale Monday but will lose about $20,000 in equity they had built up through monthly mortgage payments.
They declined to give the sale price for fear of hurting the efforts of others who might want to sell their homes in Barrington Gardens but did say it was less than their asking price.
But they did receive some assistance from Carter that allowed them to walk away without having to pay anything more to Habitat.
"With families like that, we want to help them get to where they want to be," said Carter.
The experience has left Camara, who still believes in the Habitat mission, with mixed feelings.
"We could never have gotten a home and into a position, financially, to buy another home without the help from Habitat," he said. "It is heartbreaking to leave. But we just couldn't stay."
1. Low income white liberals thought they could get a cheap house and have a utopian neighborhood.
2. Habitat did not monitor the community, and some of the children of home owners are causing problems.
On the street or in the ghetto, "independent contractor", or variations thereof, is code for drug dealer.
Isn't insanity defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?
In the late 60s two identical high-rise buildings were built in San Francisco, on opposite ends of town. One was sold in the normal market and the other was exclusively "affordable" housing. Twenty years later one was dynamited into oblivion, and the other now contains million dollar homes. Anyone care to guess which was which?
Funny thing that. Both homes I have bought in my lifetime, the previous owners both walked away. As I expected them to. They did not help me one iota after the sale. The home, the benefits and the responsibilities were mine alone. And I sold one for far more than I paid for it.
What did I do wrong? Am I living in a different universe? What?
I think all the attention before moving in conditions these folks to assume they will have their hands held in perpetuity.
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