CityView Magazine

58 | November/December 2017 spring, working then as this time under the leadership of the Methodists' disaster-response office in Fayetteville. Mathis went with them to the small brick and wood- frame homes at the end of Pennystone Drive. e cul-de- sac is at the bottom of a hill and is wrapped on three sides by Rockfish Creek which on most days is a distant burbly stream, down a 30-foot drop off. On the evening of October 8th, the creek was an ocean, topping cars parked on the cul- de-sac and roaring into houses. In one home, a woman in a wheelchair tried to reassure her three children, all of whom have autism. When rescuers arrived, the water was up to her shoulders. Her home and several others on Pennystone Drive are being repaired by the Methodist disaster-response office, with the help of grants, contributions and volunteer labor like the members of the Lutheran Builders. Between January and the end of August, 304 volunteers came from as far away as California and Wisconsin to spend several days working with the Methodist disaster-response office on hurricane-ravaged homes. ey stayed in the former youth activity center that has been converted for the use of that office by Haymount United Methodist Church. Another 305 volunteers have also participated but didn't need sleeping quarters because they live in the area. More volunteers have come since and they will keep coming. e Lutheran Builders will likely be back next year. Caseworker Dominic Kusumoto said the volunteer work done during the first eight months of the year amounted to $422,000 in labor costs that didn't have to be paid by the office's clients. "All they're paying for is construction materials," he said. e Methodist operation isn't taking business away from anyone, Evans said. Its clients couldn't afford to hire contractors. Without help, they may never have been able to fix their homes. It's a slow process from the outset. e criteria is strict. Kusumoto goes through all of the financials involved in each homeowner's case, their recovery process to date, how they dealt with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and what they did with whatever FEMA money they received to help with home repairs. Ideally, they saved the money for its intended purpose. Sometimes, though, they didn't. "Many survivors have never had that much money in their hands before," Kusumoto said of the lump-sum housing-assistance checks given by FEMA. If a homeowner spent his FEMA money on other things, he's automatically not booted from the list of those who might be helped by the Methodist program. But his situation will be a lot tougher to fund. "I look at what the difference is between Kelly's estimate of the cost of the repair and what (money) the homeowner brings in," Kusumoto said. "I figure how to make the two sides meet" through other grants, programs, funding sources and contributions of materials.

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