Sometimes, you can leave Austin just by walking through a door… at least the Austin we think we know.

That’s how iACT’s Hands on Housing staff felt when they first walked through Paula’s front door. Paula was 66 years old when she became our client, and had lived in the same modest house for nearly her entire life. Once inside the doors, it was immediately evident to our staff that her home was in alarming condition, with sagging ceilings and rotten sheet rock. Worse still, it was a cold winter day and the house felt like a freezer – there was no functioning heat. But then the real shock came when Paula confided that she had been living without running water for over a year.

No running water.

Paula was very shy and it took a long time for us to earn her trust. In the rapidly gentrifying world of East Austin there are a lot of rumors about “people wanting to take your home” and Paula was convinced that her new neighbors in their nice houses would call the City and have her home condemned if they knew how bad things had gotten. That is why she waited until after dark to fill buckets with water from a neighbor’s hose.

Hands on Housing took on Paula’s dilapidated home and  by the end of the project she had  hot and cold running water. Her roof was patched, her electrical system upgraded, the sheet rock repaired, and her exterior walls had their first new coat of paint in many years – Paula’s favorite shade of forest green

Paula sadly passed earlier this year. We are so grateful that we got to know her and helped restore her hope and her faith in others. It was an opportunity we wouldn’t trade for anything.