Program Offers a Helping Handyworker

The paint on Kattie Greeran’s home was peeling. On her fixed income, a $2,000-plus professional paint job seemed out of the question. So did a do-it-yourself project.

“The house was beginning to look shabby, but when you’re 91 years old, you don’t feel like climbing ladders to paint,” she said dryly.

She didn’t have to. In September, a five-member work crew from the East San Gabriel Valley Consortium showed up to do it for her. While they were there, the workers even installed a new faucet in her bathroom.

“It’s nice that they’re doing things for seniors to make us comfortable,” said Greeran, whose freshly painted white-and-green home is located in an unincorporated area near Azusa.

Seniors aren’t the only ones who benefit from the consortium’s services under the Handyworker program, which serves low-income families in the unincorporated areas of Arcadia, Azusa, Covina, Duarte, Glendora, Monrovia and West Covina. Priority also goes to the disabled, to families of six or more and to single heads of households. Applicants may apply at the consortium’s office on West Garvey Avenue North in West Covina.

In another case, a 35-year-old single mother of two had her three-bedroom Azusa home repainted and a front screen door replaced this month.

“It’s like an answer to a prayer,” said Rebecca, who asked that her last name not be used. “On my own, there was no way I could afford to hire somebody to do it.”

Last year, she said, the consortium replaced a cracked door and three broken windows at her home. One of the windows had been boarded up for six months.

The workers also get something out of the program. Crew supervisor Herb Standridge said it provides on-the-job training--and the minimum wage--to workers, many of them high school dropouts.

“I thought it was great that so many people are benefiting,” said Standridge, 60, who helped launch the West Covina Handyworker program a decade ago, thinking he would retire after six months. He liked it so much that he has postponed leaving.

Thirty-four people have received assistance from the program this fiscal year. And since the program started in 1979, it has helped an average of 30 families each year, said Kathryn Ford, assistant director of the nonprofit consortium. In addition, about 16 workers are trained annually.

The West Covina-based program, whose budget this year was almost $85,000, is funded with money from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and administered by the county Community Development Commission. The consortium is one of four agencies in the San Gabriel Valley with county contracts to provide Handyworker services in unincorporated areas, said Liz Myers, a program manager with the county commission.

The others are Pasadena’s Foothill Area Community Services, which serves La Crescenta, Montrose and Altadena; the Maravilla Foundation in Commerce, helping residents in South San Gabriel, and the El Monte’s Boys Club of San Gabriel Valley, which provides assistance in unincorporated areas of Bassett, Hacienda Heights, La Puente, Rowland Heights and Valinda.

Ford said recipients must have low to moderate incomes. For instance, the annual household income for a family of four cannot exceed $30,400, and preference is given to those earning $19,950 or less.

Eligible families may receive up to $800 in materials and up to $1,200 in labor costs for home improvements, she said.

That’s enough to fund work ranging from electrical repairs to smoke alarm installations to major paint jobs. And, for the recipients, it can make all the difference.

“If we didn’t do it for them,” said crew supervisor Standridge, “they wouldn’t have been able to do it themselves.”