HABITAT TO BUILD HOME FOR COUPLE, 9 OTHERS
Nonprofit has built 200 houses in San Diego County
When the email from Habitat for Humanity popped into her inbox, Jessica Smith was almost afraid to open it, in case the news wasn’t good. But when she read that she and her husband had been selected as buyers of a new home soon to be built in Escondido, tears of joy started flowing.
“We were surprised and amazed,” said Jessica.
“We won the house lottery,” said her husband, Zachary.
The couple’s application was accepted, allowing them to purchase one of 10 new homes now under construction at 245 E. El Norte Parkway, the nonprofit’s latest collaboration with the city of Escondido to provide affordable housing. The Smiths were among 270 applicants seeking to buy the new homes.
Recently, Habitat held a “wall raising” at the Escondido site to mark the start of construction on the project, which will be completed in November 2023. The project consists of 10 duplex-style homes of 1,300 square feet apiece, with three bedrooms, attached two-car garages and private yards.
Habitat will invest $6.7 million in the project from a variety of sources, including $1 million in federal HOME program funds through Escondido and $1 million in CalHome funding from the state of California.
The El Norte development marks the seventh affordable housing project that Habitat has built in Escondido, and another is also in the works.
“The city of Escondido has been a really fantastic partner. Our local cities play a really big role in helping these projects happen,” said Kwofi Reed, president and CEO with San Diego Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that works to provide affordable home ownership for local families.
Since 1988, Habitat has built 200 homes in San Diego County, Reed said.
Habitat “stitches together” a variety of resources to build its projects, from government-funded
pitals because its universality is of particular use for premature babies.
Genetics dictate that a child will not always inherit their mother’s blood type, but they will very likely end up with a wide selection of their mother’s antibodies floating around in their veins after birth. This is because antibodies, those tiny proteins that mark foreign cells for destruction by the immune system, can and do cross from mom to baby through the placenta before birth.
This means that one could give a newborn a transfusion that perfectly matches the blood type they were born with, but mom’s antibodies, created for a different blood type, can end up marking those cells as invaders that should be destroyed.
“The transfusion needs for infants, for neonates, can be a little more complex because of those maternal antibodies,” Malicki said. “So we will have to make sure that the blood we give the infant is compatible with both the infant and the mom if they don’t have the same blood type.”
Transfusions for premature babies, added Dr. Jeanne Carroll, a neonatologist at Rady, may be required for many different reasons, everything from addressing a lack of red blood cells at birth called anemia to blood loss from frequent samples collected as medical teams are trying to diagnose serious symptoms shortly after birth.
“You know, a premature infant may only have a quarter cup of blood in their entire body, so we can’t take a lot without replacing it,” Malicki said.
The never-ending need for blood is in literal motion inside Rady’s neonatal intensive care unit, where some newborns are undergoing extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, a process that uses a machine outside the body to remove carbon dioxide and add oxygen when a young child’s lungs aren’t yet up to doing the job on their own.
It is regularly the case, Carroll said, that additional donated blood must be added,
and it needs to be type O negative if there is a mismatch with the mother, a situation that, according to medical literature, occurs in about 15 percent of births.
“We’re checking every six hours, and we also have continuous monitoring of what the red blood cell hemoglobin levels are, and that will give us an indication of if we need to transfuse blood sooner,” Carroll said.
The possible shortage revolves around a process called “apheresis” which removes blood from donors, separates just red blood cells, then reinjects plasma, platelets and white blood cells back into the
body. Putting a large percentage of what’s collected right back into the body allows a second unit of red cells to be collected in the same manner during a single visit with no damage to a healthy donor.
Blood banks are looking extra hard for additional donors, especially if they have rare blood types.
Those age 17 or older, and who weigh at least 114 pounds, are eligible to donate blood if they are in general good health.
To schedule an appointment, visit sandiegobloodbank.org or call (619) 400-8251.