Volunteers repair homes for low-income elderly and disabled

While she raked leaves in the rain, Gloria Lee paused for a moment to catch her breath and say how grateful she was for the army of volunteers that came to her neighborhood Saturday to do home repairs.

Her house, in the city’s west side Miller Valley neighborhood, needed some work, including the replacement of porch railings, electrical outlets and a repair of part of a ceiling where an upstairs bathroom had leaked.

And there were some big gaps around the outside of the house where Lee was worried small animals, trying to escape the cold, might burrow in for the winter.

“I am really excited about getting those gaps filled,” Lee said.

“It’s almost like I am getting a new house,” she said about the fixes made by volunteers from Revitalize Milwaukee, a nonprofit that says it’s the largest provider of free home repairs in the Milwaukee area, completing 1,594 repairs at 340 homes in 2016.

Saturday, as many as 100 volunteers worked on homes near N. 37th St. and W. Miller Lane, doing everything from picking up trash in yards to building wheelchair ramps.

“It’s nice to get everybody together and get people talking to their neighbors,” said volunteer Amy Sorenson, a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee studying Spanish and urban planning.

Revitalize Milwaukee, which has been around for 17 years, does repairs necessary to enable lowincome homeowners, many of them elderly, to remain in their homes. Some examples are carpentry, electrical work, plumbing and the installation of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

Sixty-seven is the average age of a homeowner helped by the organization, according to its leaders. The average household income is about $1,526 a month, and recipients have lived in their homes an average of 30 years.

“These are the individuals who built our city. They are the factory workers, the teachers, the city employees, you name it. They’ve given a lot to this community over the years, and I think they deserve something back,” said Lynnea Katz-Petted, chief executive officer of Revitalize Milwaukee.

“We are helping people who are paying their taxes and their mortgages, and they just need some assistance to live in their homes safely. It breaks my heart when I see people who have worked their entire lives, have contributed to our community … and they’re living in subpar conditions.”

Some of the volunteers included employees, and their families, from MillerCoors, AT&T, We Energies and Pieper Electric.

“It’s an honor to do things for people that I know how to do but they don’t,” said Renee Thimm, a retired electrician.

Saturday, she was making electrical repairs and adding power outlets in old homes where extension cords were draped across floors, a fire hazard.

“It’s not like a job. People really want to be out here to help,” Thimm said as she stood in the rain waiting for her first assignment.

Every spring, Revitalize Milwaukee hosts a “Block Build MKE” event in which volunteers work on up to 30 homes in one weekend. They typically attract more than 750 people who donate their muscle and skills to complete repairs and make homes more accessible for the elderly and physically handicapped.

Some of the home improvements made by the organization year-round include the installation of walk-in showers, wheelchair ramps, grab bars in bathrooms and installing washers and dryers on the main floor of a home.

Accessibility and safety are the top priorities.

“One of the issues in our community is that we have more people falling and dying in their homes than are killed in car accidents,” Katz-Petted said.

“Our goal is to make sure they don’t fall in the first place,” she said.