COUPLE ESCAPES NIGHTMARE OF DRUG ADDICTION, WORKS HARD TO BUT SHARE OF
AMERICAN DREAM

IT WAS FIVE years ago almost to the day that my column appeared about
two homeless people, former drugaddicts who had made good. They had kicked
crack, they'd moved out of their shelter and drug programs, saved for six
months and rented their own apartment in Mountain View.

Today, they are the proud owners of a 1,664squarefoot, fourbedroom,
twostory house in Stockton. And although they are grandparents, they are
still poster kids for the pullyourselvesupbythebootstraps approach to
life.

``It means so much, especially where we came from,'' said Johnny Johnson,
49, a former Vietnam vet who developed his taste for drugs in 'Nam. ``It's
just mindboggling. THIS IS OUR VERY OWN HOME!!''

``And this is my very first home,'' said Judy Batiste, 45, his partner, a
former selfdescribed crack head, whose began her recovery by moving from a
residential hotel to a churchrun shelter program in Los Altos. ``Johnny
had one in Texas, but he lost that because of drugs.''

Around their front door is a small lattice porch covered with creepers,
vines and flowers.

The front door opens into a living room with a fireplace and a staircase
that sweeps around to the left. Upstairs is Batiste's den, where she keeps
her teddy bear collection; a master bedroom suite; a spare bedroom; and
Johnson's den, where he keeps his collection of hats, his electronic
equipment and other memorabilia.

Johnson jumped up and threw another log on the fire in the family room.
Outside, the rain was beating down, but inside their home was cozy and warm.

Batiste slid open the glass doors that led from the family room to the back
yard, to show me her newly planted fruit trees, Swiss chard and a variety
of shrubs and flowers.

In the twocar garage out front, there's a hot tub waiting to be installed,
as soon as Johnson can get around to constructing a redwood deck in his
50by100foot back yard.

``It's taken a lot of hard work and a lot of commitment to get this
house,'' Batiste said. ``But it's really worth it.''

For Batiste, the hard work begins five days a week at 3:30 a.m., when she
jumps into her car and begins her 90minute commute to Mountain View, where
she works for Costco on a shift that begins at 5 a.m.

Johnson has a more leisurely morning because his shift at Long's on
University Avenue in Palo Alto doesn't begin till 7 a.m. Besides, he
carpools with a friend.

Between the two of them, Johnson and Batiste estimate they spend $280 a
month on gas.

Both are trying to get job transfers to the Stockton area, but because of
the affordable real estate prices, and the host of Bay Area folk who have
moved to the Central Valley, waiting lists are long.

The couple moved into their home on May 17, 1995. They paid $127,900 for it
$1,064 per month, which includes mortgage, insurance, property taxes and
flood insurance.

``We just hit it right,'' said Johnson, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

They bought the house before it was built ``just the dirt,'' said
Johnson and would come to Stockton every weekend to watch the
construction progress. Upstairs in Johnson's den is a framed collage of
their house in various stages of construction.

Buying the home meant clearing up a long list of debts the two had incurred
during the years of drug addiction. It took them two years to clear those
up, as part of a drug program called ``making amends.''

``It wasn't easy, but people have been so kind to us. Everything changes
when you've got a positive attitude,'' Johnson said.

Another help, ironically, was the two years Johnson spent dodging bullets
three miles from the DMZ in Vietnam. This entitled the couple to veteran's
mortgage benefits, without which they doubt they could have bought the
house.

``The deposit was $750,'' Johnson said. ``We got a check back for $749. We
put a dollar down and we got this brand new house.''

The house is filled with furniture that the couple bought from garage
sales, inherited or received from wellwishers. Johnson's mother died in
1993 and left him her living room furniture. That was part of the reason
they had to move, Johnson said.

Both lost all their possessions when they became homeless. But soon after
they became clean and sober they started accumulating again and soon found
themselves growing out of their 250squarefoot apartment in Mountain View.

``We decided that we needed to find a twobedroom apartment,'' Johnson
said. ``We searched in Mountain View and around and discovered we'd be
paying between $1,200 and $1,500 a month in rent.''

They looked for something to buy. A house in East Palo Alto, they said,
while convenient, was beyond their budget. The lowest price they saw was
$169,000 for a 40yearold home, they said.

And then one of his counselors from the Menlo Park VA program bought a
house in Stockton and urged Johnson and Batiste to come and check out the
deals.

They drove over to Stockton one weekend on a whim, and never looked back,
they said. They contacted Kaufman and Broad and spent two years working
with the company's financial personnel to clear up their debts and get
their credit in working order.

Owning is very different from renting, both agree. For a start, their pride
in their property has brought a new dimension to their lives. They are
actively involved in their neighborhood, they have made friends with
neighbors and are concerned about keeping their neighborhood safe and drug
free.

Once the hot tub and the deck are completed, they plan a secondstory deck,
which will lead from their master bedroom suite.

Another bonus of owning, they say, is that they can help out their children
by taking care of their grandchildren. Their back yard is strewn with
plastic toys and play structures. Batiste's daughter has four children with
a fifth on the way; her son has five children.

The grandkids come to visit on weekends.

``Now we have somewhere they can come,'' Batiste said. ``It means so much.''

``To all of us,'' added Johnson.