For seven years, Leticia and Maynor Aldana and their two children lived in a rundown apartment in Northfield, Minn. Raw sewage from the apartment above dripped into their kitchen. The basement had standing water and mold. Their landlord was not helpful. For this they paid $1,200 a month in rent.
The Aldanas, who immigrated here —she from Mexico 16 years ago, and he from Guatemala 33 years ago— are legal residents and hard workers. He hangs drywall. She’s a seamstress. But homeownership escaped them.
“We tried to buy a house, but didn’t have enough credit,” Maynor told me through an interpreter. Neither he nor his wife speaks English. When they did finally have enough credit, they were turned down for loans because they didn’t earn enough.
“We felt stuck,” Leticia said.
However, thanks to a compassionate couple, a caring community, and their local Habitat for Humanity, the Aldanas moved into their new home on Labor Day.
“We know we can’t help every family who needs better housing, but we can help one at a time,” said Bob Thacker, a retired marketing executive, who worked alongside the Aldanas and dozens of volunteers all summer renovating a dilapidated townhome to create a “Starfish House.”
The name, Bob explained, comes from a parable about a boy on a beach covered with thousands of washed-up starfish. As he is throwing them one by one back into the ocean, an old man asks, why he bothers; he can’t save them all. At that, the boy tosses another starfish into the sea, and says, “Well, it matters to this one.”
And the effort matters to the Aldanas.
“Like so many laborers around us who mow our lawns, serve our meals, clean our homes, the Aldanas lived in slum-like housing, just a notch above homeless,” Bob said. “These folks don’t have a path to home ownership.”
The Aldanas’ new home is Starfish House 2. Bob and his team finished the first Starfish House a year ago. “From the moment the paint dried, we knew we wanted to take on another one,” Bob said.
Their model, which they would like to replicate in other communities, involves finding a rundown deserted house that they can buy for a song, asking talented and generous community members to pitch in, soliciting donated materials, and combing curbs for castoff furniture.
The Aldanas actually have their daughter to thank for putting the new home idea in play. Leticia and Maynor were among a few paid laborers who worked on Starfish House 1. As the project was winding up, the couple’s then 12-year-old daughter asked Bob, “Could you do a house like this for my family?”
He would find a way. Funding was an issue. Bob and his wife, Karen Cherewatuk, bankrolled the first house, Bob said. “We only had so much money and insurance.” Then the local Habitat for Humanity, a national nonprofit organization that helps lower-income community members build and own affordable homes, offered to partner with them.
“That was huge,” Bob said. “Habitat provided resources and the name recognition that made getting donations and contributions easier.” Until then, this Habitat chapter had avoided restoring old homes, preferring to build new ones. Bob and Karen had proven with their first project that through extreme resourcefulness and their contagious passion they could restore a rundown home for 30 to 40 percent less than the cost to build new.
Next, they found a townhouse that no one had lived in for a year. “The inside was trashed,” Bob said. “Mud covered the floors. The walls had holes in them. The basement windows had stayed open all winter.” In other words, it was perfect.
Habitat bought the 1,200 square-foot house last Spring and gave Team Starfish a $50,000 budget to restore it. “We came in under,” Bob said proudly.
Volunteers worked on the house all summer, but no one put in more hours than Leticia and Maynor, who worked there evenings and weekends around their day jobs.
“Having a house like this was never even a goal because it was such a far-off possibility,” said Leticia, who especially loves her new kitchen. The only problem is, because she’s never had such nice appliances, she has to learn how to use them. “Sometimes I’m afraid to turn them on.”
As for Maynor, he still can’t believe that after 33 years in this country, he owns a home. “This really is the American dream.”
Renovating a house can cost more than building a new one, but it doesn’t have to. Here’s how the Starfish team does it, and perhaps you can, too.
· Spend sparingly. The team stretched the $50,000 restoration budget to purchase only what they couldn’t get donated, and then he spent carefully. They shopped at Building Material Outlet, a venue that sells overflow supplies from builders, for wood-vinyl flooring, cabinets, appliances, showers, toilets, tubs and sinks.
· Spread the word. Thanks to word of mouth, over 100 local residents volunteered to help, including framers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, designers and master gardeners. Many donated building materials and provided labor discounts.
· Seek out free stuff. “I am an inveterate Dumpster diver and curb crawler,” Bob said. Early mornings, before trash pickup, and the last and first days of the month, when people are moving, are prime times. They found many pieces of free furniture, including an heirloom quality mahogany bedroom set.
· Shop for cheap. They scoured Goodwill and garage sales. They found beautiful area rugs on Facebook Marketplace. Altogether they were able to completely furnish the home for under $800.
· Restore. The Aldanas worked alongside community members to restore and refinish much of the found furniture. “A little elbow grease really can turn trash into treasure,” Bob said.
· Believe. “If I’ve learned anything from this,” Bob added, “it’s to never underestimate the power of people or how much they want to help.”
Leticia and Maynor will officially close on their new home September 19. Their house payments will be less than they now pay in rent.
CAPTION: Leticia and Maynor Aldana in their new kitchen. “I’ve never had such nice appliances,” she said. “Sometimes I’m afraid to turn them on.” Photo Bob Thacker.
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