New London – Miguel Ovalle walked through his new Ocean Avenue apartment on Friday with a tentative smile on his face, the kind of grin worn by people who can’t quite believe the path their lives are taking.

“Oh my God, I love it,” he said, walking over refurbished floors and past new kitchen appliances with his wife, Angela Hernandez, and the couple’s two teenage children, Nydia and Sully Ovalle. “It’s so much bigger than our old apartment.”

Ovalle’s family is one of three such sets of tenants set to move into the three-story complex at 33 Ocean Ave., a newly renovated residence owned by the H.O.P.E. Inc. nonprofit affordable housing group.

The group spent months gutting interiors, adding new fixtures and conducting a $485,000 “soup-to-nuts" rehab of the 130-year-old structure, paid for with federal housing tax credit money provided by Eversource, H.O.P.E Executive Director Stacey Smith said.

But the move into a larger suite of rooms, as tony as they are, isn’t enough for Miguel Ovalle, an Uber driver ― his wife works two jobs ― who’s lived in New London for decades.

“The plan is to own my own home, for them,” he said, gesturing to his family.

Fulfilling that dream of home ownership falls right into H.O.P.E.’s wheelhouse through the group’s Reynard Rent to Own Program, Smith said.

Smith said all the Ocean Avenue tenants are enrolled in the program, which requires them to attend a series of classes aimed at preparing them to own a home.

“Those classes include sessions on credit establishment and repair, budgeting and the mortgage process,” Smith said. “The idea is to provide them with a base of knowledge that will help them succeed in finding, qualifying for and staying in their own homes.”

Program participants have $100 of their monthly rent funneled into an interest-earning savings account to be used for a home down payment.

“And it doesn’t have to be a H.O.P.E. house they move into,” Smith said. “Tenants usually stay in the program for three years, but have the option to extend their time in one of our apartments, depending on the availability of homes.”

Smith said apartments like those in the Ocean Avenue building ― the group owns four such complexes in New London ― offer the chance for tenants to gain a level of self-sufficiency.

“Some tenants may never have used a dishwasher before, done their laundry anywhere but a laundromat or learned how to check a breaker box,” she said. “We want them to understand how all those things work because when you’re a homeowner, you have to rely on yourself if something needs to be fixed.”

Former H.O.P.E leader Marilyn Graham said the group has enabled about 12 renters to move into homes since the Reynard program was established more than two decades ago.

“There are homeowners today who would not be homeowners if it had not been for the Reynard program,” Graham said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday at the Ocean Avenue apartment house attended by tenants and city and community leaders.

In addition to overseeing 10 apartments, H.O.P.E has built or renovated nearly 50 homes in the city for low- to moderate-income residents.

Mayor Michael Passero said H.O.P.E’s success in steering needy residents into affordable rental units and homes has garnered statewide attention.

“This is the model that has to be re-created,” Passero said. “And we’re willing to work with you to scale it up.”

j.penney@theday.com