Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, July 4, 1994                   TAG: 9407040079
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: HOLIDAY 
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

CRITICAL NEEDS FAR EXCEED VMH'S ABILITY TO MEET THEM

She knows roughly when the last work was done on its roof. It was sometime in '67 or '68. She remembers because it was a couple of years or so before her husband died in 1970.

Now that roof, which has tin, plywood, tar paper and layer upon layer of shingles, is leaking. The shingles, curling and cracking, were designed to last 15 years. Water drips through to both the front and back porch, and two or three months ago Minnick arrived home to find it pouring into the bedroom up front where she hangs her collection of dolls.

Minnick gets by on a Social Security check that leaves no money for repairs to her roof, or for the structural damage that Mitch Holcomb sees in the sagging frame, crawl space open to the elements and rotting timbers.

"At this juncture, all I can say is keep your fingers crossed. It's not going to be easy," said Holcomb, program manager for emergency home repair with VMH Inc.

Holcomb saw this house a year ago. The roof was not leaking then, but it obviously needed work. Problem is, there are always too many homes needing emergency work, so workers cannot repair the ones that can hang on for a while until they, too, become emergencies.

"I can never get to all the people who qualify to be served," laments Holcomb. "I don't have a lot of funding, and I generally operate as a one-man band."

Some people have been waiting as long as four to five years for help.

"I know people get impatient with me because they've been waiting forever," he said.

Holcomb averages about 50 jobs a year, but that is out of 700 requests, he said.

Many of those who call are elderly or disabled and are living off $3,000-$7,000 a year. Sometimes they have to decide between medicine and groceries. For them, home repair would be a luxury.

"It's really abysmal what I see," he said. He recounts stories of termites eating away at houses, rotted-out kitchen floors, toilets overflowing with feces.

Emergency home repair is just a small part of what VMH does, and it is generally a money-losing operation for the organization, he said. But it is something VMH always has done, something its people were doing even before VMH became a nonprofit corporation.

"People here say we're going to keep doing it," Holcomb said.

That is good enough, but to do everything he would like, he would need a lot more help. He constantly is prioritizing jobs, searching for other groups to match the funds he receives from the state and federal government and deciding which jobs he can financially tackle. To help his efforts go further, he looks to church and civic groups to donate money and labor.

This year's budget of about $35,000 ran out in December, halfway through the fiscal year, Holcomb said.

The money is spread around projects in Montgomery and Floyd counties and Radford, although this year he also worked on several projects in Northern Virginia. State regulations often limit him to spending only $1,000 on each project.

That means that Minnick's house, which Holcomb said will need a minimum of $2,000 worth of work, may continue to wait for repairs. He may be able to spend $1,000, but Minnick or other sources probably will have to come up with the extra money.

"If we don't come up with additional funding, we may not be able to do the job," Holcomb said.