Building sustainable lives through sustainable housing, New Directions started over 50 years ago in a small Catholic Church in the West End of Louisville, Kentucky. Today, the organization owns 912 apartment units for low income individuals and families, the majority being single mother families or elderly and disabled individuals..
“That’s really where we do the bulk of the work, in our multifamily communities,” said Max Monahan, director of home repair. “We have a department called Resident Services that helps to provide wraparound services to our tenants. We help them with job skills, training, transportation, childcare, basically all sorts of barriers that prevent somebody from getting out of affordable housing and into market rate rental or home ownership.”
New Directions’ Repair Affair Program does free home repair for many individuals, including legacy homeowners, or individuals and families who have owned their homes for 20 to 40 years. “Most of the time, it’s an elderly widow who is living by herself, usually on nothing but social security. For people in those situations, it’s hard for them to sell on a larger scale,” said Monahan. “It’s important to help them because they are the ones who particularly become victims of displacement when neighborhoods go through revitalization. What our free home repair programs do is make sure those homeowners can stay in their homes, that the homes are safe, accessible, secure, and visually appealing.”
New Directions’ efforts to repair and revitalize homes encourages individuals to stay in their homes longer, allowing them to pass them along to the next generation and build wealth. This is particularly important in black communities who, over the last 80 years, have not really been afforded those opportunities to build family wealth through homeownership.
The Repair Affair Program is helping to make the American Dream of owning a home a reality for many people. “We want people to be a part of the neighborhood revitalization process; we don’t want them to be a victim of the neighborhood revitalization process,” Monahan passionately stated.
Repairs can include anything from simple yard work or painting, all the way up to roofs, window repairs, and furnace work. Since the program’s beginning in 1993, they have helped revitalize 4,334 homes in Louisville and Southern Indiana with more than 45,000 volunteers. Monahan explained that volunteers come from all walks of life, including churches, businesses, banks, large organizations, and many civic groups. “We’ll have retired guys who can do all the handyman repairs you can think of, to large church groups with their 50 – 60 volunteers.”
Repair Affair is always accepting volunteers for home repair projects. Monahan, who began volunteering for the organization before he was employed there, has a special place in his heart for volunteer work. “I remember the day I left my first volunteer job. I just had a good intrinsic feeling of ‘wow, we really helped that homeowner.’ By the end of the day, sometimes the homeowner is crying on your shoulder because it’s the greatest thing that has ever happened to them. They don’t have to worry about being cited or losing their homes. It’s a way for individuals to care for the matriarchs and patriarchs of their neighborhood while also building pride in their communities.”
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