The Investigative Reporting Workshop and New America Media profiled those hardest hit by the foreclosure crisis in communities of color.

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INDIO, Calif. — Santiago Vargas sits on a wooden bench under the awning of his mobile home, looking at another bill he just picked up from his mailbox.

“I thought the American Dream meant owning your home, but for me it was just paying bills,” he said with a laugh, reflecting on an 18-month ordeal that took his family from a trailer park to a new house and back again.

Vargas, his wife and three of his four children, have lived in this two-bedroom mobile home since losing their house to foreclosure three years ago. His oldest daughter and her family live just a few blocks away in the same trailer park. But it was not too long ago that all of them lived under the same Spanish-tiled roof in a spacious new home in nearby Coachella.

Photo by Joseph Rodriguez

Santiago Vargas, unable to afford mortgage payments on his house, said moving into a mobile home was a relief.

“I never imagined I could provide such a beautiful home for my family,” he said in Spanish. “New appliances, new furniture, new everything.”

Only seven years earlier, Vargas, now 48, and his family left the border town of Mexicali for the Coachella Valley. Vargas found work with a local farmer. When his boss opened a trailer park, he asked Vargas to manage the property in exchange for free rent, while continuing to get paid for farm work.

After his eldest daughter married, she and her husband proposed that the families pool their resources and buy a home together. Vargas and his wife were overjoyed to have their entire family together again in a 3,000-square-foot home in a new development in Coachella.

“I felt so happy, but it was only for a very short time,” he said.

A year after moving into their dream home, Vargas’ son-in-law lost his construction job. Unable to pay their share of the mortgage, the young couple — by then expecting their first child — moved into a trailer park in Indio. Vargas was unable to make the payments on his own.

“It was a terrible time,” he recalled. “I was scared that I would come home from work to find my family on the street.”

Vargas stayed in the house until he saved enough money to buy a trailer.

“I felt so bad moving my family out of our home, but at the same time it was such a relief for me,” he said. “The stress of keeping the home was not worth it.”

He was not alone. Many of his neighbors lost their homes and the once desirable community was soon in disarray. He says the bank ended up selling his former home for one-third of the price he paid for it.

The support of his wife and daughters helped to make the move easier. His wife found the nicest mobile home they could afford without taking out a loan, and his daughters didn’t complain when they had to switch schools.

“I know my daughter wanted to raise her family in that house, and that makes me sad,” he said. “I know she still dreams of having her own home.”

Vargas too still dreams of moving out of the trailer park into a roomier place with his own yard and more privacy.

“I would love to be back in a home,” he said, wistfully. “But it would be a small home, a simple home. One that I can afford on my own.”