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In the Balboa Laguna neighborhood of Tucson, Ariz., Habitat homeowners hail from locations around the globe. Each of their paths to homeownership is united by their common determination to work hard and to make the best of their fresh start in Tucson.
‘There was hope in my heart’
Azraa Baker and her husband, Ghays Wahab, came to Tucson, Ariz., in 2001 as refugees after a seven-year journey from their native Iraq through Iran and Turkey. The years of following the hope of better opportunities elsewhere took their toll. Was it difficult to find housing when they moved from country to country? “Of course,” Azraa says, then becomes quiet.
Shortly after they arrived in Tucson, Azraa read about Habitat for Humanity in an article, and a friend familiar with the program encouraged them to apply. For various reasons, their application was denied until the fourth try, but their persistence paid off. “There was hope in my heart,” Azraa says. “We wanted a home.”
Azraa, Ghays and their four children are scheduled to move into their Habitat house in December. “It means everything to me,” she says. “My kids can have a better life, enjoy childhood and play. It will be the first house we will have lived in as our house. I think I will spend the rest of my life here.”
‘We worked hard’
Ismet Osmani and his wife, Rahime, fled Kosovo in the midst of ethnic strife and landed in Tucson in April 2002. Five years later, citizenship papers in hand, they are also on the path to homeownership.
“I used to live in a house over there, and it was burned, destroyed in the war,” Ismet says. “Now we’ve been living in an apartment for five years, and you always have to be careful about noise and leaving stuff on the porch — it’s hard.”
Ismet, who works as a driver for a hotel and holds a side job in a restaurant, jumped into his sweat equity and finished his hours well before the construction on his house was completed. Because of his work schedule, he is not often able to build on the weekends, but he drives by the build site each week to check the progress.
“We worked hard and feel like we’ve accomplished a lot,” he says.
‘I call it our perfect little nest’
When Jill Osuna was bitten by the Habitat bug, she was bitten hard. A Habitat homeowner, she also serves as president of the Balboa Laguna homeowners association and works part time in the Habitat office as an assistant to the director of accounting.
“I love coming to work,” she says. “I know what I’m doing makes a difference.”
Growing up, Jill and her family moved frequently, but when Jill met her husband, a member of the Pascua Yaqui Native American tribe with extensive family in Arizona, she figured she was in Tucson to stay. Finding a home to live in, however, was challenging.
“A lot of people are selling their homes in California and New Mexico and coming here,” she says. “They’re only building houses for $300,000 and up, but the wages around here haven’t moved. Even some middle-income families are having a hard time.”
After struggling with illness due to mold and allergy contaminants in their apartment, Jill has found her new Habitat house to be a place of rest and dreams for the future. “It’s our nest, our place where we’re going to grow old together, a place to call our own. I call it our perfect little nest.”
'If they’re happy, I’m happy'
Esperanza Huizar immigrated to the United States from Mexico as a teenager. Throughout her childhood, Esperanza’s father had worked in the United States to support his family and could visit only infrequently. “My dream was to move to the United States and have a family,” she says. Now a Habitat homeowner in Tucson and a parent herself, family is still paramount. “It’s an accomplishment I’ve done for my kids. Being a mother is hard, and having a house means I don’t have to worry about where we’re going to live next. It’s something I’ve always wanted for my kids, to have a stable place, to have friends for a long time, to go to the same schools.”
Esperanza works at a local hospital and was the first of the hospital’s employees to benefit from a partnership with Habitat Tucson. “I was tired of looking for a house, and the children were tired of moving around. It was a miracle.
“I’m very happy to be a Habitat homeowner. At this point, it feels like all my dreams have come true. I’m enjoying the house, my kids are enjoying it, and if they’re happy, I’m happy.”
'He likes this very much'
When Vietnam’s government regime changed in the 1970s, Lan Bui didn’t wait long to find out what would happen to someone who had previously worked for the South Vietnamese government. She escaped to Hong Kong and in 1998 arrived in Tucson as a refugee. She found an apartment but didn’t feel safe when her car was stolen, and conditions were less than ideal for Lan and her son.
“The apartment was so bad,” she says. “The roof leaked, and every time it rained we had to clean. But he likes [the Habitat house] very much.”
Lan likes to cook Vietnamese noodles in her kitchen, one of her favorite rooms, and even enjoys doing laundry in her new laundry room. Plus, she’s much more confident in the Habitat neighborhood.
“If you have a house, you can live in safety,” she says. “In a house, a family has time to talk to each other.”