Enterprise provided a $1.4 million loan for an extensive rehabilitation of Villa de Clara Vista, which is one of Enterprise's first Green Communities developments. Today, the complex offers ample security, green spaces and safe playgrounds for the neighborhood's children. Olga and Jose Escalera with their children at home in Portland.

The Escalera Family, Portland, Ore.
Olga and Jose Escalera were looking for a new life for themselves and their children. But sadly, life at the Galaxy apartment complex in Portland's Cully neighborhood was not much better than what they had left. Slumlords allowed deplorable living conditions, drug dealers roamed the streets and gang rule threatened community life. In 1993, residents reclaimed their neighborhood by creating the Hacienda Community Development Corporation. Enterprise provided a $1.4 million loan to Hacienda for extensive rehabilitation of Galaxy, now called Villa de Clara Vista, which is one of Enterprise's first Green Communities developments. Today, the complex offers ample security, green spaces and safe playgrounds for the neighborhood's children. Olga and Jose love their family's new apartment.

"I don't believe my family would still be together if Enterprise and Hacienda CDC hadn't changed this neighborhood. We might have lost our kids to gangs or drugs…they would be different people than they are today."

Jose Escalera

The Gebrezgi Family, Seattle
Tesfai Gebrezgi was born in Ethiopia and has lived in public housing in Seattle for 11 years. His 12-year-old son’s severe asthma has required emergency hospitalization all too frequently in recent years. When Tesfai heard about the Enterprise-supported Breathe Easy homes at High Point in West Seattle, and learned about how they are specially designed for families with asthma, he immediately started filling out the necessary paperwork to move there. The Gebrezgi family moved to their new home at High Point in June 2006, and Tesfai says with relief that his son has not had any emergency visits to the hospital since moving.

“I don’t have to worry that my son could stop breathing at any minute from an asthma attack anymore – thanks to being able to live in a Breathe Easy home at High Point. Since we moved into our new home my son is doing much better. His medication dosage has been lowered, he can breathe better and he hasn’t had any attacks.”

Tesfai Gebrezgi, resident of a Breathe Easy Home at High Point