Yardi proposal writer Lexi Beausoliel and her husband, Matthew, can call themselves homebuilders – multiple times over. Each year, the Santa Barbara couple makes at least one trip to the Colonias of East Tijuana, Mexico, to assist with a Southern California home building non-profit called Project Mercy. Since 1991, volunteers participating in the project have constructed hundreds of homes for impoverished Tijuana residents living without a nearby water source, indoor plumbing and other basic utilities that Americans take for granted. Due to the positive impact of the experience, this summer the Beausoliels decided to kick it up a notch. Rather than organizing just one team of volunteers to complete just one home, they decided to aim for five – enough to build five houses for families in need, completed in a single day. In addition to the manpower, they are hoping to fundraise nearly $20,000 to cover the building cost. “Instead of just one house, we can build a small community,” said Lexi Beausoliel, who credits her spouse as the driving force behind the quadrupled effort. “(Matthew) has had such a great experience doing this, and felt like it would be really impactful to gather our friends, colleagues, and families together to build a group of homes in one day. It will be like building a village.” In order to qualify for the assistance of a Project Mercy volunteer team, the residents receiving the homes –who own the land where the simple residences are constructed – must contribute significant sweat equity by pitching in on projects in advance of their own build day. And they don’t cease contributing when their own properties are complete, either. “Families that we have built for the year before always come back and help. It’s really cool to see...