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Success, one home at a time Mail Tribune / Steve Johnson Terrie Pacheco celebrated completion of her new home on South Oakdale Avenue on Sunday. Local housing advocacy groups such as Habitat for Humanity and Rogue Valley Community Development Corporation want to expand their work to provide homes for people who have been priced out of the real estate market. By Bill Kettler Even with the front-door keys in her hand, Terrie Pacheco could hardly believe she finally had a home to call her own. Pacheco positively beamed Sunday as members of Habitat for Humanity/Rogue Valley celebrated completion of her new home. After months of work, with help from dozens of volunteers, the single mother of five will move her brood this week from a one-bedroom trailer to a modest four-bedroom house on South Oakdale Avenue. "Even though I�ve been here every day it hasn�t been real yet," she said after the dedication ceremony. "I don�t know when it will be real. It�s getting closer." Pacheco and her children are among the fortunate few who have benefited from organizations that create homes for families who have been priced out of the real estate market. For years, Habitat for Humanity/Rogue Valley and other groups have chipped away at Southern Oregon�s affordable housing shortage by building one structure at a time when resources became available. Habitat, for example, has built 18 homes since it opened its local chapter in 1987. Lately the groups have begun working together with members of the Medford City Council to find ways to put more families in their own homes and improve run-down neighborhoods. The working group includes members of Habitat for Humanity, Rogue Valley Community Development Corporation, ACCESS (the Rogue Valley�s community-action agency) and the Housing Authority of Jackson County. "We know home owners keep up their homes and take pride in their neighborhoods," said Medford city councilman John Michaels, a member of the council�s housing subcommittee. The working partnership is too new to have a name, said Medford Councilman Sal Esquivel. "It�s going to take a while to firm up" things like goals and a mission statement, he said. The housing-advocacy groups realized they shared similar goals, but didn�t know much about each others� programs, said Ron Demele, director of Rogue Valley Community Development Corporation. "We each do something a little different," he said. The Community Development Corporation rehabilitates older homes with labor provided by high-school students. The students learn job skills while providing homes for families that earn about 80 percent of Jackson County�s median income (about $38,000 for a family of four). Habitat for Humanity serves a lower income group, those who earn 30 to 60 percent of the median income. Home ownership became an impossible dream for many families during the 1980s and �90s. People moving into the Rogue Valley drove real estate prices beyond what many local working people could afford. Mill closures eliminated many $12- to $15-per hour jobs while home prices soared from $50,000 to $100,000 and more. By the fall of 1999, the Medford area had the dubious distinction of being one of the five least-affordable housing markets in the United States. Medford�s housing market was less affordable than Seattle�s, according to a survey conducted by the National Association of Home Builders, and Medford�s housing market was only slightly less expensive than San Francisco. "We realize we have to expand," said Ron Demele. Previous city councils have acknowledged the need for more affordable housing, but done little to make it happen, said Kristi Tanner, president of the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Tanner hopes the community groups can work together to rehabilitate homes that still have value and build new more new homes. "There�s more collaboration going on now than ever before," she said. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA