Malcolm Jones, executive director of Rebuilding Together Richmond (Photo by Jay Paul)
Mary Miller had been cold for 49 winters.
At night, she would shiver in her bed as icy air gusted down from the uninsulated attic. Sometimes she’d get up and sleep on the sofa. She covered windows with plastic to keep out the chill, but the curtains still fluttered in the draft.
“It was really bad for a long time,” she says. Not only that, but Miller, who is legally blind, had become afraid to walk down her front steps without someone watching to make sure she didn’t fall.
But she was reluctant to move from the cottage in Highland Park where she had lived since 1970, which is decorated with pictures of her beloved children and grandchildren and memorabilia from Barack Obama’s presidency. So when Miller received a letter from Rebuilding Together Richmond saying she had been approved to receive free home repairs, she hoped desperately that it was true.
In April, she knew at last that it was.
Volunteer crews from Richmond Window Corporation and the Virginia Housing Development Authority replaced the drafty windows, insulated her attic, laid laminate flooring in the kitchen and bedroom, and built a sturdy ramp from the front porch to the sidewalk. Among those working on the ramp was 29-year-old Malcolm Jones, the newly hired executive director of Rebuilding Together Richmond.
“What a great thing that you all did for me,” Miller says to him later. “You really made my day, my life! It really was unbelievable.”
Rebuilding Together Richmond is the local chapter of a national nonprofit that repairs homes free of charge for people who are elderly, disabled, veterans or otherwise in need. For many low-income Richmonders, their home is their only significant asset. If they can’t afford to maintain it, they may sell it for a low price to flippers, fall prey to scammers, or live in unsafe, unhealthy conditions.
“Homeowners, oftentimes, we’re their last hope,” Jones explains. “The need is significant.”
Miller’s house was one of 32 projects the organization tackled during National Rebuilding Day in late April, a one-day blitz that brings together local contractors, churches, companies and nearly 1,000 volunteers.
You don’t need advanced construction skills to work on a house, says Liz Shaw, who began volunteering with DuPont’s corporate team in the early 2000s. In 2012 she took over as DuPont’s house captain, which means becoming a general contractor for the day. “I came in with the skillset of a project manager,” Shaw says, and learned everything else along the way. “If you can’t do something, you can find the right people.”
Improving individual lives is only part of Rebuilding Together Richmond’s mission; stabilizing communities is another. Picture a historic neighborhood like Highland Park as a quilt, and every homeowner as one bright piece. Gentrification, the deterioration of houses and the proliferation of short-term renters strain the fabric. The work done by the nonprofit helps reinforce the stitches by allowing neighbors like Miller to age in place.
Rebuilding Together Richmond volunteers complete repairs and touch up paint on a home in the city’s North Side. (Photo courtesy Rebuilding Together Richmond)
Rebuilding Together has become an enduring patch in the quilt. Rather than bouncing around the city, Jones explains, the nonprofit seeks to go “deep and wide” by investing heavily in a single area. It has focused on the North Side for the last three years. In 2020, it will move on to Oak Grove and Bellemeade in South Side.
A staff of just five full-time employees oversees the massive Rebuilding Day effort, as well as year-round planning and fundraising. It’s tough work, says Shaw, who is immediate past president of the board: “Not everything is clean-cut, with a lot that we do with the homeowners, with government officials, with our sponsors.” She says the board hired Jones as executive director, after he served almost five years as a staffer, because of his skill managing complex processes and relationships.
Jones moved to Richmond 11 years ago to study mass communications at Virginia Commonwealth University. After graduation, he worked as operations manager for the Metropolitan Business League. Mentored by MBL President and master networker Oliver Singleton, Jones learned the art of connecting people and organizations to get a big job done. “The need is so great, not one organization can do it all,” Jones says. “So, we rely on each other and figure out the best fit.” For instance, he recently brought together MBL members, minority contractors and students from the Richmond Technical Center to work on a house.
By making these connections, he hopes to increase public awareness of Rebuilding Together so it can serve more homeowners and attract more volunteers. The work makes a long-lasting difference in people’s lives. Jones recently drove through Davee Gardens, a South Side neighborhood the nonprofit targeted in 2015, and saw the railings and ramps they had installed still being used.
“When I look at Ms. Miller,” he says, “I also think about my grandmother.” In the 1990s, the local affiliate of Rebuilding Together repaired her home in Roanoke. And all these years later, she’s still in her house.
Interested in working on homes as part of the Oct. 12 Fall Fix-Up Day or National Rebuilding Day in April? Learn more about volunteer opportunities with Rebuilding Together Richmond.
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