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Jul 10, 2023Good Neighbors Home Repairs stays true to its name
KENNETT—Fourteen staffers and 210 volunteers from a local 31-year old organization serve the community with a big heart, while knowing how to swing a hammer.
Good Neighbors Home Repair provides a helping hand, while performing critical home repairs, to make homes for low income residents warmer, safer, dryer and healthier. And all the work is done at no charge.
Good Neighbors Home Repairs doesn't upgrade but instead repairs homes of residents in southern Chester, southern Lancaster and northern Newcastle counties.
Two hundred and one families were served last year, with an average cost of $5,000 each. The group works with a $1 million budget for 2023 that is totally gifted by family foundations, individuals, businesses, churches, clubs and by government funding at the county level.
Megann Graf is the strategic relations director for Good Neighbors and enjoys viewing the results.
"It's great to go in and see that you have given hope to someone not just by repairing their homes," she said. "We try to make each homeowner feel like we’re seeing them and care about them."
"Many people think of affordable housing as vouchers, rental assistance, tax credits, and newly constructed homes with low-interest loans," Harold Naylor, executive director of Good Neighbors, said. "However, home repairs and modifications are also an important solution to the housing crisis in Chester County.
"Home preservation is the best and most affordable housing option for the majority of low-income households. According to the Coalition for Home Repair, ‘building new homes won't solve the problem. For every affordable housing unit that is built, two others are lost to abandonment, deterioration, or conversion to more expensive housing. It also costs about 26 times more to build a new affordable home than to repair an existing one.’"
Good health is important. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified investing in home repairs for low-income households as a high-impact strategy for addressing root causes of poor health. Home repairs and modifications allow people with disabilities, veterans, and older adults to avoid institutional care and remain safely in their homes.
Good Neighbors is trying to prevent homelessness and to keep older residents aging in place.
"People prefer to say in their own home in their 80s and 90s and not be placed into an institution," Naylor said. "By repairing homes we restore hope and give them dignity."
Six men act as project managers. They lead and perform repairs, while training and supervising volunteers. Outside skills such as plumbing, air conditioning work and electrical upgrades are done by contractors.
A government indicator, or 60% of the lower median income, determines eligibility. Currently, the average eligible homeowner income stands at less than $39,000 per year.
Of the homes served in 2022, 50% were for older adults, 33% were headed by a single parent/grandparent and 13% housed someone with a disability.
Twenty nine roofs were replaced and 22 were repaired, seven heaters were replaced and 20 were repaired, six hot water heaters were replaced and five were repaired and two air conditioners were replaced and seven were repaired.
Good Neighbors is a faith-based nonprofit ministry and repairs the physical world as well as a client's relationship and spiritual needs.
"We are a ministry showing the love of Jesus through work and the tangible hands and feet of Jesus," Naylor said.
There are no requirements that anyone served or volunteering must share similar religious beliefs.
Naylor talked about the benefits.
"The best part is watching local people have a tremendous impact to the lives of our lower income neighbors and to see their satisfaction," Naylor said.
For more information, to volunteer or to donate, go to www.goodneighborshomerepair.org
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