Project Mercy

Building Homes + Hope

By Leah Etling on May 29, 2015 in People

Yardi proposal writer Lexi Beausoliel and her husband, Matthew, can call themselves homebuilders – multiple times over.

Each year, the Santa Barbara couple makes at least one trip to the Colonias of East Tijuana, Mexico, to assist with a Southern California home building non-profit called Project Mercy. Since 1991, volunteers participating in the project have constructed hundreds of homes for impoverished Tijuana residents living without a nearby water source, indoor plumbing and other basic utilities that Americans take for granted.

Due to the positive impact of the experience, this summer the Beausoliels decided to kick it up a notch. Rather than organizing just one team of volunteers to complete just one home, they decided to aim for five – enough to build five houses for families in need, completed in a single day. In addition to the manpower, they are hoping to fundraise nearly $20,000 to cover the building cost.

“Instead of just one house, we can build a small community,” said Lexi Beausoliel, who credits her spouse as the driving force behind the quadrupled effort. “(Matthew) has had such a great experience doing this, and felt like it would be really impactful to gather our friends, colleagues, and families together to build a group of homes in one day. It will be like building a village.”

In order to qualify for the assistance of a Project Mercy volunteer team, the residents receiving the homes –who own the land where the simple residences are constructed – must contribute significant sweat equity by pitching in on projects in advance of their own build day. And they don’t cease contributing when their own properties are complete, either.

“Families that we have built for the year before always come back and help. It’s really cool to see everyone pitching in,” Beausoliel said. The volunteers also load up their vehicles with donations of gently used clothing, furniture, and other supplies. They cross the border, do the build, and return to the U.S. all in a single day.

Significant prep work for the final build, like pouring the concrete foundation slab, is completed before the volunteer teams arrive. A raised floor is uncommon in the build neighborhood, with existing shelters constructed directly on dirt.

“The people seem really happy to have any of the help that we can provide. Even a little thing like having a house that is raised off of the dirt by a concrete floor – when you live in desert-type environment, that can make a huge difference in your life.”

For Beausoliel, the most meaningful part of the Project Mercy experience has been seeing the impact that a very simple roof and four walls can have on a child’s worldview.

“When you see a little kid walk into their new house for the first time, and it’s the biggest structure that they’ve ever been in, it’s pretty amazing – the look on their face. A little boy said to me: ‘Really? This is really my house?’

A lot of times the little kids try to give me gifts, which is the most humbling thing, because they have nothing. They might have a beloved treasure that’s just a piece of a keychain, and they’ll want to give it to you.” Children even participate in the build day effort, with painting and clean-up duties.

“Even though people are living in those circumstances, they are very relatable. They just seem like somebody that you would meet here, or go to school with or work with. But they’re having to deal with all this extra work that goes into keeping their clothes clean, getting their kids to school, getting to work, when they’re basically living in shacks. Many of them have moved from even more dire or unsafe conditions in other parts of Mexico or Central America,” Beausoliel said.

Information about Project Mercy and online contributions can be made at http://www.projectmercy.net If you feel moved to pitch in, please be sure to click “SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS” and request that your donation be made to the “THE BIG BUILD, JUNE 27^th ”before confirming.