Community Service TO Veterans In Berks County

NeighborWorks America keeps low income individuals in affordable homes.

Affordable housing for those with lower incomes has become a major concern throughout the US. Most construction that one notices within cities is intended to create luxury accommodations, mostly for the small percentage of citizens and foreigners who are millionaires and billionaires. Within such cities as NYC luxury towers have been built, but remain virtually empty, as absentee owners buy these glitzy condominiums, just because. At the same time, those without may not even afford to keep a roof over their heads.

Into this gap between extremely wealthy and poor comes this organization, NEIGHBORWORKS AMERICA, whose objective is to connect lower income individuals with affordable housing. They do this by improving the lives of the individuals they serve, while supporting their communities.



Let's take a look at a project in Berks County, Pennsylvania. This project addressed the large number of military veterans living in the county, almost 30,000. Many were in the age range of 60 to 70 and lived on fixed incomes. That meant that those who owned homes had trouble maintaining them and could not make the key accessibility additions to their homes as they found it harder to maintain mobility. And then there were those without homes, too.

In 2015, the Neighborhood Housing Services brought various government agencies and NGOs together in a collaboration that led to the week-long "Operation Renovation: A Veteran's Affair". What amounted to an army of volunteers undertook repairs, renovations, and accessibility additions to veterans' homes. A total of 29 projects were completed, with an estimated value of $73,638 in labor and materials. Dale G. Derr, director of the Berks County VA said, "Operation Renovation was a game-changer for many veterans who are financially at risk, living in decrepit homes to avoid becoming homeless."

In addition, those involved with the project were concerned about the issue of PTSD among veterans and first responders, so they also supported Save a Warrior (SAW). As a result, additional contributions, amounting to $8,000, went to SAW.

This year was even more ambitious. Operation Renovation undertook 72 projects, double the number of last year's. There was no shortage of volunteers, either. Because Group Care, a Christian youth ministry, joined the effort, there was a total of 450 volunteers, divided into teams of six, with adult supervision provided for the adolescents.

A construction team works on an addition to a veteran's home.

Of course, a project of this size also provides key lessons. Among them are: COLLABORATION - the more people and organizations involved and working together, the more that can be accomplished. PERSERVERANCE - Keep on keeping on. Don't let a few people or one or two organizations dropping out stop the others from continuing on until completion. CHOOSING TEAMS WISELY - Make sure to include people who love to win on each team, but if they aren't available, at least add people who hate to lose.

One of the community-building activities in which NeighborWorks engages.

Thanks for information from this article by Kelley Coates on NeighborWorks America blog: http://www.neighborworks.org/Blog/How-to-honor-veterans-by-saving-homes; and the above link.

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