Habitat for Humanity Welcomes Families Home in Walnut Creek

Patti Wang Cross
Habitat for Humanity East Bay/Silicon Valley
510-803-3348 (office) | 510-219-0088 (mobile)
PWCross@HabitatEBSV.org
HabitatEBSV.org

Habitat for Humanity Welcomes Families Home in Walnut Creek
April 13^th Event to Celebrate Completion of First
23 Affordable Homes at Esperanza Place

WALNUT CREEK, CALIF. (April 14, 2024) — Habitat for Humanity will commemorate the completion of 23 new, affordable homes at Esperanza Place, a neighborhood being built with the help of its future homeowners and the community, with a public Home Celebration on Saturday, April 13. These completed homes represent the first phase, while the remaining 19 homes will get under way this summer. 

A time-honored Habitat for Humanity tradition, Home Celebrations are an opportunity for the community to gather around the newest Habitat families and welcome them home. For the new homeowners, the Home Celebration is the culmination of hundreds of hours of their sweat equity, rigorous financial counseling, and a thorough application process. For the community, it is a cathartic recognition of thousands of volunteer hours, donor dollars, sponsor support, and focused advocacy.  

Nestled along the Iron Horse Trail just steps from the Pleasant Hill BART station, Esperanza Place is a model for transit-oriented and climate-smart affordable development. The new homeowners are households earning low and moderate incomes – people and families priced out of a chance at homeownership on the open market. Among the neighborhood’s first homeowners are: a young family looking forward to long-term stability after immigrating from Ukraine; a doting grandfather who sees his home in terms of its generational impact; parents who know how critical the permanence of affordable homeownership will be for their nonverbal autistic son. 

In addition to honoring Habitat’s newest homeowners, the Home Celebration is also a commemoration of the community of support that surrounds Esperanza Place. The City of Walnut Creek, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development HOME Program, Bob and Barbara Frick, First Republic (now a part of JPMorgan Chase), Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco/Patelco Credit Union, the Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, and Kaiser Permanente embraced the development from the start with critical funding that made the project possible. The Home Celebration will give attendees a chance to tour the site and an open home, getting a guided look at the building features – from rooftop solar to thermal mass foundations to water-wise landscaping – that make Esperanza Place Habitat’s first Zero Net Energy development.

“Home Celebrations are emblematic of who the Habitat for Humanity community is,” said Janice Jensen, President and CEO of Habitat East Bay/Silicon Valley. “It’s an incredible tapestry of all the hearts and hands that go into building a Habitat home, coming together in partnership with the homeowners whose memories will breathe life into this new neighborhood.”

The Home Dedication for the first 23 homes at Esperanza Place will be held on Saturday, April 13, 11am -12pm, at 1250 Las Juntas Way in Walnut Creek.