Topics / MALIBU : Redecorating Bargains Aid Disaster Victims

There’s power in numbers.

That’s the idea behind a new store that caters to disaster victims. The Malibu Buyers Group was founded this summer to negotiate bargain basement prices for the hundreds of people who lost their homes in last year’s wildfires and the subsequent earthquake and mudslides.

The eastern Malibu business has proved particularly useful for people who were underinsured and have had to dip into their savings to rebuild.

“Once people get their bids from contractors, they find out they are going to run out of money,” said Karen York, who formed the company with Gretchen Hays in July. The two women lost their La Costa homes in last year’s Nov. 2 firestorm.

“Our raison d’etre was we felt we had the numbers and the need,” said York, who also co-founded Operation Recovery, a fire survivors support group based in Malibu. “Why shouldn’t we organize?”

York and Hays say that in Malibu, at least 500 people will be buying interior furnishings and other goods once their homes are rebuilt. Then there are the hundreds of people whose homes burned last year in Calabasas, Altadena, Glendale and Laguna Beach--and those who lost homes in the Jan. 17 earthquake and in Malibu’s mudslides last winter.

Soon after the two women began organizing their group, they quickly realized that they could not afford to work without pay. They decided the group would be a business, hoping to earn enough to pay for their time and cover the cost of renting office space and a showroom.

“People have said to us, ‘I thought you were going to do this out of the goodness of your heart,’ ” said York, who runs her own consulting business and publishes the Malibu Times, a local weekly she owns with her husband, Arnold. “But I said, ‘If I did that it wouldn’t work.’ It’s not officially not-for-profit, but it probably will turn out to be.”

York and Hays work with P. J. Routt, who is co-owner of Matrix Crisis Rebuilding Team Organization, an Alameda design services and purchasing company that was founded to help those who lost property in the 1991 Oakland fire. The two companies joined forces, with the Malibu Buyers Group providing offices and promotional services and Matrix supplying the merchandise--interior furnishings, doors and windows--all 5% to 30% below prices that contractors can negotiate, which are generally lower than retail, Routt said.

Most of the fire survivors are not far enough along in rebuilding to use the group’s services. Indeed, only two of the homes destroyed in the Malibu fire have been rebuilt.

So far, 16 families have requested the companies’ services: seven fire victims from Malibu and three from Laguna, four quake victims from Santa Clarita, one Santa Monica quake victim and one Malibu mudslide victim.

Among the customers are Augusta and William Chadwick, whose Woodland Hills home suffered about $200,000 in damage in the Northridge temblor. Augusta Chadwick, who describes herself and her husband as dogged “comparative shoppers,” said their insurance claims and government aid money will not cover the cost of rebuilding and refurnishing.

“You can’t stay within your budget,” said Augusta Chadwick, 52, who also hired one of the Buyers Group’s certified interior designers at a discount price of $55 an hour. “When you are paying $500 to $1,000, it is worth it to look for better prices. It’s not like a $25 purchase. At least 90% of the time they beat everybody else.”

The combination of companies that sell through the Buyers Group offers an eclectic array of kitchen cabinets, marble floors, fireplace facades, hardwood flooring, dumbwaiters, hot tubs, outdoor heaters, windows and doors.

Matrix has also been in discussions with residents of Laguna Beach about creating a similar venture to aid fire victims, Routt said.

Anyone can use the Buyers Group, but the only people who qualify for discounts are disaster victims who present their Federal Emergency Management Agency identification numbers and register at the company’s Malibu offices.

Once residents sign up, York and Hays keep a computer file in which they record their purchases, prices, delivery dates, building schedules and the names of architects and contractors. When the residents have bought all the goods and services they need, the information is printed for their personal records.

York says: “If I can do a service this year to enable myself and my cohorts to get on with their lives, then I will have done what I needed to do.”

The Malibu Buyers Group showroom and offices are at 21355 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, (310) 456-1930. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.