Nonprofit changes life of Purple Heart veteran
Mortage-free home called a ‘blessing’ for single father of three
As former U.S. Army Spc. Michael Villagran steered his white GMC Acadia toward a quiet Cypress neighborhood, his stomach began to flutter.
With each turn, nerves mounted. Anxiety grew. He started shaking. Was this day really here? The day that, in his darkest moments, he never could have imagined.
When he stepped on a bomb in an abandoned building in Afghanistan in 2012, mangling his right leg. When he went through four years of surgeries and medical procedures and sheering pain. When, after all that, his doctors told him the limb could not be saved. When he was evicted from his apartment, out on the street with his three little girls, and had to be taken in by his parents.
Rock bottom. Only a few months in the past, but already receding into the rearview mirror.
The 26-year-old Purple Heart veteran pulled up to a two-story red brick house on a corner lot landscaped with young oak trees and blooming flowers. The U.S. and Army flags waved from a pole in the front. At the entrance, by a metal ramp, lay a pristine welcome mat.
Across the garage door, a banner: “Welcome Home.”
His daughters, dressed in pink and carrying their favorite stuffed animals (a tiger named Milo and panda named Cookie),
bounced up and down, eager to go inside. Villagran, a single parent, paused at the entrance, his eyes already welling with emotion.
They had not been here since August, when Building Homes for Heroes, a nonprofit that provides mortgage-free houses to wounded veterans, first notified him that it would renovate the property for Villagran and his family.
He had not seen the newly widened doors, large enough to fit his wheelchair. Or the brandnew laminate floors, smooth enough not to trip up the scooter he uses to get around without his prosthetic limb. Or the chairlift that can take him up to the second floor.
Or his daughters’ rooms, painted in cheerful Sherwin Williams shades they had chosen: 7-year-old Natalia’s in “Free Spirit” lavender; 5-year-old Alyssa’s in “Impatiens Petal” pink; 3-year-old Carolina’s in “Lantern Light” yellow.
Inside the house, Villagran’s family, friends and members of the Building Homes for Heroes circle waited to greet him. His father, who had traveled with his wife from their home in Illinois, already had wiped away tears more than once.
After seeing his son suffer so much, this day felt like a burden lifted from his shoulders, Juan Villagran said. “I feel relieved. He will be OK.”
The Villagran house is the 138th given to a veteran and his or her family by Building Homes for Heroes and the ninth to be awarded in Texas.
Building Homes, founded in 2006, is on track to finish a house every 10 days, said president Jim Cummings, a 24-year Air Force veteran. In addition to building homes from the ground up, the organization also partners with JP Morgan Chase, which provides foreclosed homes that are renovated and gifted to military families. Villagran’s is the 950th mortgage-free house the bank has donated since 2011.
As Villagran stepped across the threshold, his little girls darting past him to embrace cousins and dash in circles around the still-unfurnished rooms, the young veteran seemed overcome.
For a long time, Villagran felt alone. There seemed to be no help when he most needed it, when homelessness lurked and he didn’t see a way out. It didn’t seem to matter that he had served in the military, that his injury had taken away the Army career he dreamed of and the athletic lifestyle he cherished, that it threatened his family’s future.
Building Homes for Heroes changed everything, he said.
“This time last year, I never could have imagined I’d be at this point. Coming from the bottom, I now can put my feet on the ground,” he said on Saturday. “It’s a blessing for my daughters. It’s for them. Everything I do is for them.”
As Villagran stood in his home, his eyes glistened.
His daughters shouted with glee. “Daddy, can we see our rooms?” “Daddy, look at your room!”
They played peek-a-boo in the walk-in closet.
They tumbled up and down the stairs and danced in the upstairs play room.
Alyssa started planning her decor. The first thing her room needs, she said, is some unicorn stickers.