Byline: Selina Pedi-Smith with Isaias Gomez, Pellere Foundation
When you’re deep in the cleanup of a long-neglected house, you learn to see progress in small victories—another wall stripped to the studs, another load of debris hauled away, a little light breaking through where there used to be none.
For Isaias Gomez, who’s been hard at work on Pellere’s 403 W 2nd Street project, those victories are what it’s all about.
“There’s a rhythm to a place,” he explains, “where people talk to each other, know who’s struggling, who’s doing well. And they want it to feel alive again.”
What drives him is that vision—turning a house back into a home, a block back into a community. “When people see progress, even just a little bit, it reminds them that someone cares,” he says. “That they can care, too.”
A broken building, left alone, can pull everything around it down. But when something starts to change, it lifts people with it.
That belief—that progress is possible and contagious—drives the entire Pellere team, from the hands-on work of clearing debris to the conversations about what these spaces can become. And it’s a belief Isaias has seen proven time and again, both in his life and in the work unfolding here.
“You don’t need to know who lived there before or why it fell apart,” he says. “You just have to look at it and think, ‘What could this be?’” He pauses. “That’s what we’re doing here. It’s not just about fixing one house—it’s about showing people they can believe in their place again.”
As part of Pellere’s first residential project, Isaias and the team are putting in the hours, clearing away what’s broken to make space for something better. And as they work, that quiet rhythm of progress takes hold—one step, one day, one house at a time.
Because no matter where you’re from, everyone understands what it feels like to be proud of your place.
