The Sunnyvale Sun
News
Volunteers to repair, spruce up four homes, but need help
By ANNE WARD ERNST
Four Sunnyvale homes are about to get some needed repairs on National Rebuilding Day, courtesy of Rebuilding Together Peninsula. But the nonprofit group needs help.
Rebuilding Together Peninsula provides free home repair to low-income, elderly or disabled people. This year the program received more than 230 applications from Daly City to Sunnyvale, and was able to commit services to 75--four of which are in Sunnyvale.
For the past 17 years, on the last Saturday of April, RTP volunteers are out in force, weeding yards, painting and doing general cleanup.
Some of the work needs professional volunteers. Those bigger projects include widening a bathroom doorway for wheelchair access, installing wheelchair ramps and repairing or replacing furnaces and roofs. The complexity of such work is more detailed and specialized than the skills of most volunteers, so skilled professionals are needed.
These jobs also take more than one day to accomplish and are worked on before the national event.
One of those jobs in Sunnyvale is to help the family of a man who was in an accident that left him in a wheelchair. The man's older brother left his job to be his caregiver and also cashed in 401K savings to provide for the family.
The home is not wheelchair-accessible. This includes the bathroom door. The shower is inadequate as well, so the man must bathe in a children's plastic wading pool in the garage.
The house has two wall furnaces, neither of which heats the home properly.
Carpet that is in much of the house needs to be replaced by linoleum so the man's wheelchair can roll freely.
This family does not have the financial means to improve the home, so RTP plans to do the work but is looking for someone with the expertise to do it.
Mark Fagerstrom, RTP's program director, said most volunteers are office workers with limited construction skills.
For each home RTP renovates, the program partners with a sponsor that provides a team of 30 volunteers who collectively work on National Rebuilding Day. The volunteers paint, trim bushes, install shower grab bars and oil squeaky doors. The sponsor also donates $5,000 to help pay for materials or labor that is not donated. In cases such as the wheelchair accessibility requirements, the $5,000 doesn't go far.
"Throughout the year we do about $2 million in market value of repairs and renovations, and we get the majority donated," said Kristina Knudsen of RTP.
Of the other three Sunnyvale homes, one needs a wheelchair ramp, one needs a new roof and a furnace and the other needs general repairs and cleanup.
Electricians and roofers are sorely needed this year across RTP's service area.
"We have about 32 roofs that we need to replace and repair, and after these rains and wind, we need it even more," Knudsen said.
The region's recent wet weather has leaked buckets of water onto ceilings of some of the homes scheduled for repair. In at least two cases--one home in East Palo Alto and another in South San Francisco--there is concern the ceilings contain asbestos. Asbestos that was commonly used in buildings pre-1970s is hazardous and needs to be removed by a professional.
Fagerstrom said the organization's limited funds can't cover the cost of removal, which was estimated to be about $3,000 for just one home.
Donated materials, such as the 200 square yards of carpet that RTP received in March, save the cost of purchasing it, and that money can be used for something else. The next battle is finding someone to install it.
"We're just trying to win this war by little miracles," Fagerstrom said.
To donate, volunteer or get more information about Rebuilding Together Peninsula, go to www.rebuildingtogetherpeninsula.org, or call 650.366.6597.
