Nonprofit aims to help seniors, disabled stay at home

Kevin Smith’s home just off of Brookside Park on the near-east side has caused him quite the headache. Donning black boots and carrying around a handwritten list on scrap paper, he points out the recently completed work—a fixed sewer line, mainly—and what remains to be done. That list is longer: new floors in the kitchen and bathroom and a new shower, plus repairs to a sagging bathroom ceiling, deteriorating basement steps and a crumbling bathroom wall.

He and his wife, Sylvia, live in a home from the 1930s. They are on a fixed income. They moved back to Indianapolis 27 years ago, following his military service that temporarily stationed them in Germany.

In 2020, the bathroom flooded. He contacted NeighborLink Indianapolis, now known as Home Repairs for Good. The nonprofit found that cast-iron pipes had deteriorated on the sewer line inside the couple’s crawl space, which could lead to extensive damage if not repaired. Soon enough, a backhoe was digging out his backyard to reconnect his pipes to the city sewer.

“It would have cost easily $2,500, easy,” Kevin Smith told IBJ. “And I had no way of having that kind of cash available. So I was thankful.”

Founder Dave Withey started the nonprofit in 2013 as a spinoff of Fort Wayne NeighborLink, which inspired the name until a 10-year revamp. At any given time, Home Repairs for Good has about 250 homeowners waiting for repairs, according to Executive Director Rachel Nelson.

The nonprofit specifically serves Marion County homeowners who are at least 62 years old or have a disability and are at or below 150% of the federal poverty line. For a family of two, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development says $2,555 is the threshold monthly income.

Often, those who come to Home Repairs for Good for help aren’t doing so for the first time—like Kevin and his wife, who received help for their sewer and want more assistance for the other problems. Nelson said that is encouraged as part of the nonprofit’s mission to help seniors age in place.

Home Repairs for Good clients are referred to the organization through 211, health care partners or the Marion County Health Department, which sometimes issues citations to dilapidated homes.

In 2023, Home Repairs for Good completed 940 projects for 440 homeowners. Projects ran the gamut from installing a handrail to a full roof replacement.

This year, the organization has been focused on higher-cost projects and has completed 750.

For less-expensive repairs, on average $1,500 per home, the nonprofit relies on donors and grant programs. For projects defined as home stabilization, the group taps into funds from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis through a partnership with Merchants Bank. These repairs include work like foundation repairs or roof replacements and cost $10,500 to $15,000.

Delilah Smith, 72, had a ceiling that was leaking in three places. Delilah, who is not related to Kevin and Sylvia Smith, was losing sleep over the growing water stains that popped up above her.

Home Repairs for Good sent someone to patch the roof twice in two different areas before a worker finally told her, “We’re not going to keep doing this.”

Three weeks later, she had an interview and home tour to have her roof replaced by the nonprofit.

“That was the first night that I had slept sound all the way through in months out of concern of, ‘Is it going to rain again?’ Or, ‘What kind of damage is it going to do?’” she told IBJ. “I’ve been sleeping like a baby ever since that.”

If it hadn’t been for the nonprofit, “it would have been falling down around me,” she said.

Home Repairs for Good has 12 employees. It works with 700 to 800 volunteers a year who do minor home repairs. For bigger or more complex projects that require plumbing or electrical expertise, Home Repairs for Good pays contractors. It has a pool of nearly 20 on hand for those jobs.

At the end of November, the average turnaround time for projects was just over 3-1/2 months, Nelson said. Electrical projects have the slowest turnaround time at eight months. Because of that, the organization is currently not accepting electrical projects until the backlog is down. And during the winter months, the team pauses outside work except for roofs.

Nelson said projects are prioritized based on a mixture of time-sensitivity, funding availability and labor or skill availability. The nonprofit also takes into account whether a homeowner is waiting on a repair before being able to come home from the hospital. Those clients get bumped up.

While Home Repairs for Good is focused on allowing seniors and those who are disabled to stay in their homes, Nelson said maintaining affordable housing in the city is a natural extension of the group’s mission work.

“It’s really important for our city to look at these areas within our city where homes need [repairs], but those individuals don’t have the finances or the physical capability to do those repairs,” she said.

Delilah Smith, for example, lives in Flanner House Homes. The 180 houses were built beginning in 1946 through a program that helped low-income Black World War II veterans build their own homes. As Smith watches her modest home fall into disrepair, her neighbors are probably experiencing similar problems with their own homes.

Nelson wants state lawmakers to help fund repair programs that enable people to stay in their homes. In Pennsylvania, she said, that state invested American Rescue Plan funds in a statewide home repair program. The Whole Home Repairs Program offered homeowners up to $50,000 for repairs. It was so popular that 18,000 people remained on the waitlist when the program ended last year.

“Affordable housing has come to the forefront for a lot of our local lawmakers, but they aren’t understanding that we’re not going to be able to build our way out of the problem,” Nelson said.

To that end, she said, she’s had informal conversations with local and state leaders about ways the organization could expand its work.

“We want to make sure, one, they are aware that we exist, and two, that this is something that the city needs to really put an eye on,” Nelson said. “And you know, why re-create the wheel? We’re here. We’re happy to help. And if we’re able to receive some funding to help within this, we certainly would be more than happy to take that on.”•