HDC Newsletter Spring 2005
Aquí está lo que pasa con nosotros
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In this issue
 Farmworkers Celebrate School Success
HDC Donor Profile- Dr. Susan Cabello
Pre-teen Gives Birthday Money to HDC
New Housing for 22 Farmworker Families Announced!!!!
Explorador Summer Science Program Funded for 2005
Farmworkers Celebrate School Success
Students in ESL and Spanish literacy classes celebrated their term completion this winter with certificates and refreshments at HDC's Jose Arciga Community Center.
Many supporters know that the HDC houses farmworkers. But the HDC also offers classes to help farmworkers make better lives for themselves and their families. The HDC hosts three
10-week terms per year, and more than 90 adults participate each session. During any given year about 1/3 of HDC residents take one or more HDC adult education class.
Most of the students in HDC classes are residents, but the courses are also available to other community members in need. Students pay a nominal fee that is returned as a gift card if they achieve 75 per cent attendance.
The HDC has seven bi-lingual teachers who lead classes for adults in English, ESL math, literacy, basic computing, and GED test preparation. During the day, HDC evening class teachers are employed by the Hillsboro and Forest Grove school districts where they often teach the children of their adult learners. Teachers say when both parents and children are students, the children perform better in class, probably because of the example their parents set by studying at home.
The HDC serves as a stepping stone for low income Latinos seeking access to community workforce resources including vocational training and post secondary education. Many agricultural workers and their neighbors do not have enough schooling in their own language or know enough English to participate in community-based English classes or community college ESL classes. In HDC classes, students' abilities are assessed at the beginning of each term, and students are grouped by ability to encourage rapid progression. They are again tested at the end of the term as a means of helping to evaluate teaching methods and curriculum.
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HDC Donor Profile
Dr. Susan Cabello
On a book case in the office of Dr. Susan Cabello, Professor of Spanish language and literature at Pacific University, is a photograph of two Mexican girls in a colorful hand-made paper mache frame.
The two friends, long-haired, lanky, with shy 11-year-old smiles, live thousands of miles away in small, dusty village in the middle of southwest Mexico. But still, they're clearly present in Dr. Cabello's office, as the conversation turns time and again to them, their neighbors and fellow countrymen in Mexico and the U.S.
Dr. Cabello is a former Housing Development Corporation Board member who maintains close ties to the organization as a donor and volunteer. She is drawn to the HDC because of the people HDC serves, many of whom come from the same area in Mexico where the two girls live. Dr. Cabello says most Mexican people who work in the Portland area travel here from three Mexican states: Michoacan, Jalisco and Oaxaca. Many knew each other in Mexico and rely on those friendship and family ties when in Oregon.
"There's a Spanish verb aguantar - it means to tolerate, to endure, to bear, to put up with. They are able to do that. They have a toughness, they have endurance," Dr. Cabello said.
"I feel a personal respect for the Mexicans who come here. They are survivors -- gutsy people. Americans ought to know about them."
Dr. Cabello is one of HDC's most reliable donors, and by giving consistently over the years, her contributions have put her in the major donor category. Friends of Dr. Cabello who she encourages to support HDC are also generous, making Dr. Cabello one of HDC's most effective advocates.
Over the past six years, Dr. Cabello has taken teams of graduating Pacific University education majors to the same village in the state of Jalisco, Mexico in order to show them why so many Mexicans are willing to leave their country.
"You see the effects on communities with no men, because the men have gone north to work. The women are trying to do it all on their own," she said. "You see the anguish among the women when they lose contact with their men and wonder if they'll ever return. People are hungry and among the men who are left, alcohol is a big problem."
Villages in Mexico are like American towns during the major world wars. Healthy men are gone for the most part, and the boys yearn to follow them.
"The young men come for adventure, because it's the thing to do, because they've heard stories. The older men come to make money for their families. But if they had a chance to earn a living in Mexico, I doubt if so many would come," Dr. Cabello said.
The Pacific University students travel with Dr. Cabello to Mexico to help at the local schools and do interviews with adults and children, hoping to better understand the forces that shape the people's lives. The small rural towns they visit are very poor, rating between a 1 and a 3 on the Mexican government's 10 point scale of poverty.
"Listening to the interviews made me want to help them. When working with children you can see the present with the future implications and you know their opportunities will be limited," she said.
But for the two girls in the photo, there's some hope. With the assistance of a scholarship fund created by Dr. Cabello, both were able to go through the 9th grade, when most children in their village stop school in sixth grade. In rural Mexico, when children reach 7th grade, families often have to decide whether they can afford to send their children to larger nearby towns that offer middle and high school. Text books and uniforms must be supplied by the families. For some families these costs are prohibitive.
One of the girls pictured is even going on to high school, with the help of Dr. Cabello's scholarship fund. Dr. Cabello said the family of the other insisted that their daughter quit school so she could earn money for the family. "Living where they do, it's sometimes difficult for parents to see much use for additional education," she said.
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Pre-teen Gives Birthday Money to HDC
Rebecca Collins, a tall, long-haired student at City View Charter public school in Hillsboro, celebrated her 11th birthday in an unusual way. Rather than treating her friends to an outing and receiving presents, Rebecca opted for a much simpler celebration. She asked 10 guests to come to her home for games and cake, and to make a donation to the Housing Development Corporation of Northwest Oregon.
"I wanted to do a charity because it seems like I have so much and others so little and why should I just get more?" Rebecca asked.
When Rebecca told her mom, Monica Gorman, about how she'd like to celebrate her birthday, Rebecca's mom suggested the HDC as a beneficiary. Ms. Gorman had learned about the HDC when it was featured at a New Seasons barbeque benefit last July. New Seasons had given HDC staff and volunteers the chance to earn money by serving lunch at New Season stores. Food was donated by New Seasons, and all proceeds went to HDC programs for farmworker children.
Rebecca, like other kids, enjoys the games, toys, CD's and books that children give each other, but fixing her calm, steady, big brown-eyed gaze, she said: "I don t even need all that stuff I get for my birthday, I just want it."
Rebecca said she got the idea for donating her birthday cash from seeing a little boy on television during the presidential campaign who was asked to lead the Pledge of Allegiance before one of Senator John Kerry's speeches. The boy was honored because he had donated his birthday money to a charity. Rebecca figured: if he could do it, she could, too.
As it turns out Rebecca may have started what could be called the "Birthdays for Charity" trend locally since she's finding her friends are willing to be generous in a similar way. "My friend Elena is sending her birthday money somewhere and so is Hannah." Rebecca was accompanied to the HDC office by her younger sister Clare, 8 and friend Tacey Smith, 11. Tacey's birthday proceeds went to the Heiffer Project and Clare's to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation
Ms. Gorman said "Rebecca just received an invitation for another party, and it's the same thing. The child chose a charity that she's asked guests to give to."
Ms. Gorman spoke about the Gorman-Collins family approach to child-rearing, which sheds some light on why her daughters have chosen to benefit charities with their birthday proceeds. It starts with their sense that they already have enough.
"Rebecca has never been a big toy person, anyway. When she asks for things, I tell her 'We could get that, we have the money, but if we don't buy it, we'll have more money for tickets to the theatre or a concert. We support the arts and local businesses that way'," Ms. Gorman said. "I promote experiences that the family can have together over possessions - besides; I can't stand all the clutter in the house."
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New Housing for 22 Farmworker Families Announced!!!!
Los Arboles construction to begin summer, 2005
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Up to 138 farmworker family members will live in new HDC apartments to be built in Scappoose beginning this summer. The 22-unit Los Arboles apartments will rent for less than market rates and will be available in two, three and four-bedroom units. A two-bedroom unit will cost about $518 for rent and utilities. Families will be able to move in beginning spring, 2006.
Up to 1400 farmworkers are estimated to work in Colombia County, but most have to commute from Hillsboro, Portland and other communities due to the lack of affordable housing. Los Arboles will be the first affordable housing project in Colombia County for agricultural workers and is likely to serve nursery employees. Doug Longhurst, HDC Co-Executive Director and project developer, says it's likely that the project will also attract farmworkers employed on nearby Sauvie Island in Multnomah County.
Only agricultural workers who earn less than 50% of the area median income ($33,950 for a family of four), will be eligible. Most units will also come with rental assistance, if needed, so that a family will pay no more than 30% of their income on rent.
Located on Old Portland Road, one block from Highway 30, the 1.37 acre level site includes 10 two-bedroom units, 10 three-bedroom units, two four-bedroom units, a laundry room, play equipment, a management office and a basketball half-court. Central to Los Arboles and all HDC projects is a center where English, basic math, computer and GED courses are taught and community activities take place. The apartments will have easy access to nearby schools, shopping, library, emergency and social services, state offices and public transportation.
The HDC will coordinate with the Community Action Team of St. Helens (CAT) to ensure that residents have access to local public services. CAT has been an important collaborative partner in the development of Los Arboles, including site location assistance and inter-agency support.
Total development costs are estimated at approximately $3.6 million dollars. Site acquisition was made possible through a loan from the Network for Oregon Affordable Housing. Permanent funding for the project includes loan and grant commitments from USDA Rural Development totaling $2.2 million dollars and a State of Oregon Housing Trust Fund grant of $100,000. Still pending are an application for Farmworker Housing Tax Credits that would yield $990,000 in project equity and a Community Development Block Grant application for $235,000 sponsored by the City of Scappoose. The project was designed by GEN Architects of Portland. A general contractor has not yet been selected. CASA of Oregon is providing development assistance to the HDC. Los Arboles will be the first project developed by the HDC outside of Washington County.
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Explorador Summer Science Program Funded for 2005
PGE Foundation has granted the HDC $10,000 and Bonneville Power Administration, $5,000 to help fund the Explorador summer science program for farmworker children in 4th though 6th grades. The HDC hopes to raise the remaining $5,000 needed through local community donations.
The HDC's partner is Portland Audubon Society and together they will serve up to 60 children. The HDC - Audubon alliance started last summer, and worked so successfully that the boards of the two agencies decided to renew the collaboration. The Audubon Society provides experienced science educators, and the HDC gives administrative and supervisory assistance.
The Explorador program will incorporate the Hydromania! Curriculum developed by BPA to teach about our ecosystem via hands-on-activities focused on water, wetlands, streams, lakes, and oceans and local flora and fauna.
The HDC emphasizes skills for academic success in its summer programs because of the needs of the low-income children it serves. All the children come from homes in Hillsboro and Aloha where English is a second language. Parents typically are not high school graduates. The majority of families live on less than $25,000 per year. The Explorador Program will be the only summer camp experience for most of the participants.
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