(From the summer 2024 print newsletter) Local Army veteran Bill purchased his home about five years ago. The previous owner wanted to sell to a veteran who would live in it, not convert it to a rental or investment property. “That suited me just perfectly!” says Bill.
But as soon as he moved in, “I realized that I had bought a huge pile of trouble: all the leaks in the house. The heating is inadequate; it’s those little baseboard heaters,” he explains. “I’ve just been watching this house fall apart right underneath me.”
With mortgage payments and a limited income, he had no funds to make repairs. After seeing an ad for Energy Resource Center, he decided to approach them for help. A staff member there told him about Pikes Peak Habitat’s home repair program, and after he filled out the application, he quickly qualified and began speaking with staff and volunteers about the repairs he needed.
“I think that was God-sent, it really was,” he says. “Everybody that has come here has been kind, helpful, compassionate.”
Between them, Energy Resource Center and Pikes Peak Habitat replaced most of the windows in his home. We also worked with Owens Corning’s roof deployment project and local contractor Old World Roofing to replace Bill’s roof. And our repair crew installed a mini-split heating and cooling system—the same one we install in the new homes we build—to replace the ancient heaters that had become a fire hazard.
“You can’t look any direction where they didn’t do something,” says Bill.
But far more impactful than the physical changes to his home—crucial as those are for Bill’s health and safety—have been his experiences with the people he has met through the process.
“If there’s a thousand percent difference, it’s just like another world, a world I didn’t know existed,” he says. “A world of honest, forthright people…I had a lot of good things happen to me that I can’t really explain.”
He adds, “It’s like a whole new family. And now I got the ReStore people, and that’s like another whole family!”
Bill is paying it forward—and continuing his association with Pikes Peak Habitat—by volunteering at the ReStore South, 411. S. Wahsatch Ave., Colorado Springs, CO 80903, each week.
As a Colorado Springs native, he grew up visiting the lumberyard that occupied the space where the ReStore is now, so volunteering there brings back memories.
“I’ve been to that building that is the ReStore since I was a little kid,” he recalls. “My dad would always take me in there to get his hammers and stuff, his tools.”
He’s developing connections with coworkers there. “The ReStore is someplace real special,” he says. “Del, the guy I work with, he’s only three years younger than me. It’s like we’re brothers!”
He says working with Pikes Peak Habitat volunteers and staff has “reinforced my belief in a higher being, and just knowing that no matter how much I feel alone, I’m not alone. And he won’t abandon me….When he puts his hand on you, you know it. And I know it. Every day I know it now.”
Bill’s home has a beautiful view of Pikes Peak, and he is intentional about enjoying it.
“I always see the sun rise, and I always see the sun set every day,” he says. “If I don’t do anything else, I watch the sun come up and watch the sun go down because that’s what he wants me to do. That’s when I acknowledge his power over everything. So this has been something that I’ve never had in my life: a religious experience.”
