WATERLOO -- Emilio Mena came home from work last week at the Tyson plant and climbed on a rickety chair to insulate the drafty living room windows with plastic.

Next to him stands an artificial Christmas tree that his daughter, Bernice Villa, 12, assembled to spruce up the sparsely decorated room, but there are no presents under it.

"Santa Claus is poor right now," Mena said in Spanish.

He and his wife, Elia Rodriguez, recently bought a home in Waterloo with the help of El Centro Latinoamericano, a Latino resource center, and Waterloo Housing Partnership.

In the three weeks since moving in, Johnny Villa, 11, has painted his room blue-green and Bernice Villa has painted hers pink. Mena and Rodriguez laid down new tile in their bedroom, and there's the matter of tearing up the old living room carpet.

It's a lot of work, Mena said, but they're loving every second of it.

"We're having fun doing it because we know it's ours," he said. "You put money into it and it's an investment."

The joy of home ownership is even spilling over into his job.

"What you earn there, you're putting it into your home -- it's for yourself," he said of his new-found enthusiasm for meat processing.

Mena and Rodriguez are graduates of the housing authority's first home ownership classes that include a Spanish language interpreter. The four-week course, held this summer, resulted in six new Hispanic-owned homes.

Upon completion of the training, the couple qualified for downpayment assistance -- 7 percent of the home's price, up to $5,000 -- and a mortgage.

The classes were tailored to meet the needs of the Hispanic community, many of whom have little or no experience with loans and mortgages, said Waterloo Housing Partnership coordinator Donna Lesyshen. She said people came in not understanding the importance of credit, or that lenders are there to help, not to cheat them out of money.

"One of the things that I found was that the participants in the class were hesitant," she said. "They have zero experience. It is different from the Bosnian community, where a majority of them had owned homes."

Mena said the classes helped home ownership seem less daunting.

"They went through the process step by step, and it didn't seem so intimidating," he said.

El Centro Latinoamericano director Gina Cassis, whose previous job was as a Hispanic home mortgage consultant for Wells Fargo, helps prospective home owners navigate the paperwork.

"I go out with them (to get the loan) because I can tell them what they need to do to be pre-approved," she said.

Rodriguez said Cassis inspired confidence by being there every step of the way.

"Gina was there to close the deal on the house," she said in Spanish. "She interpreted a lot, and she's still working with us to this day."

Carole Gustafson, president of El Centro Latinoamericano, said Hispanic home ownership benefits everyone.

"It puts roots down in the community. They're likely to get more involved in the community, and it gives kids a sense of community," she said.

For the couple, the stability of home ownership gives them a peace of mind that they didn't have when renting.

Rodriguez, who is pregnant, said she doesn't have to worry about uprooting her children when moving or about making alterations to their home.

In addition, she said, the extra space affords each child a room and allows them to add another bedroom for the baby, which is due in March.

The only thing they would have done differently, Mena said, was pay closer attention in class when they covered what to look for in a new home.

"The first thing they told us was to check the windows," he said.

Contact Jens Manuel Krogstad at (319) 291-1580 or jens.krogstad@wcfcourier.com