WP neighbors homeless due to water damage
Dear friends and neighbors: I’m appealing to your generous spirits to help out my friends and our fellow neighbors in the western part of Windsor Park, Mo and his mom Wilma, who have been rendered homeless and their house destroyed by water damage due to the recent storms. Unbeknownst to them an animal had chewed a hole in a part of their roof which resulted in water penetrating the ceiling during all of our recent storms. If that wasn’t bad enough one of the ceiling rafters (soaked from the water penetration) failed and the ceiling caved in due to termite damage that they were unaware of. This resulted in their entire home and almost every possession being water damaged. The water also shorted out their electricity. Their home is now completely unlivable due to the moisture and resulting mold in the dry wall and floors. I’ve seen (and smelled) the damage with my own eyes and it’s every bit as bad as these photos suggest.
Insurance is not giving them a dime as they have deemed the damage was caused by ‘wear and tear’.
The entire house needs to be gutted and fully dried. They will likely need to replace all the electrical work too. A repair of this scale would normally be $30-50k!
Both Wilma and Mo work 2 jobs just to make ends meet. One of Wilma’s jobs is a house cleaner and her business has been cut down to almost nothing due to COVID so money is extremely tight.
Fortunately Mo is able to cut down the costs of labor by doing most of the work himself in the evenings and weekends (after working his full time construction jobs), but materials are not free. Mo has been able to start roof repairs with some $ they had saved up, but they don’t have nearly enough for all the work that is needed and they have no money for temporary housing.
Anything that you donate will go directly to Wilma and Mo to help them with housing (hotel/airbnb/etc) and materials while Mo works feverishly to repair their home. We were able to donate the use of our WP rental home to them for a week since it is currently vacant, but they will need housing for at least 3-4 months while Mo continues to work on the repairs between working his full time jobs. They don’t have anyone that they can stay with in Austin.
If you can find it in your hearts to donate to them you will he helping a family keep the home they have lived in for 25 years in our wonderful Windsor Park neighborhood. Please don’t let a developer benefit from their misfortune (which is what will happen if they have to sell their home as-is to one of those cash offer outfits).
Thank you for reading and for your donations.