I have a friend whose house needs complete remodeling, roof, plumbing, dry wall, etc. I feel that her home is not a safe place. She is on disability and she is not physically or financially capable of doing any of the work. She has no family to call on.
By Wendy
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If she is on disability she may be able to sell her house and get into a government subsidized, section 8 apartment. Depending on how much money she gets out of the house she may not quality though. She may not want to sell her house but you need to try to convince her that she doesn't have much of a choice because it's only going to get worse. I doubt she will be able to find anyone who would donate their time and money to fix her repairs.
Your friend should have been having one repair made at a time. You can't tell me all of these major repairs occurred at the same time. Maybe she should sell the house as is and move into an apartment.
There is a nationwide organization that goes by different names according to where you live. There are cases of it having one name in the state, but different names in different cities. Most people call it "OIL"(Opportunities for Independent Living). That being said where I live it has a different name and I don't know what it is because it was recently changed.
Your friend should talk to her case manager/social worker/welfare worker, whatever they are called where you live. I'm sure your friend must have one of them if they are so low income that they need this type of help. The organization that I mentioned has a waiting list, and they do go by income. They are here to help low income seniors and disabled people. That being said, I know some disabled people that receive enough disability income that they are better off than I was when I taught school.
Low income is in the eye of the beholder. This organization also has the rule that if the person that they have helped has to leave the house for some reason, the money that they spent on repairs will have to be paid back on a pro-rated basis. One of my sisters had that happen to her, the organization put a partial new roof on her house and a few years later she had to go into a nursing home, when her house got sold she had to pay back part of the cost.
When it comes to roof repairs they will only repair the portion of the roof that is bad. This means that it won't necessarily match the rest of the roof. In the case of my sister's roof the repairs that were made was metal instead of regular singles that wouldn't have been so noticeable.
Your friend should talk to her pastor, he/she might know people that could help with the most important repairs. Usually a pastor will be willing to help a needy member of the congregation.
The thing with getting into Section 8 housing/low income housing is, depending where you live there is usually quite a long waiting list. Where I live it is roughly five years.
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