Woman gets help rebuilding life after stroke shatters it

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By Mary McCarty, Staff Writer Updated 12:29 AM Sunday, February 14, 2010

Last April, Verdell Sims stumbled upon a crew of volunteers fixing up a home in her Cornell Heights neighborhood. “Would you mind if I helped?” she asked, and threw herself wholeheartedly into the Rebuilding Together Dayton’s annual Rebuilding Day.

She lopped tree limbs, planted flowers, raked up debris. “I worked for five hours without getting tired,” she said.

Recalled house captain Roger Cox of Englewood. “By the end of the day, Verdell was having such a good time, she told us, ‘Be sure you tell me when you’re doing this next year.’ She wanted to be part of it.”

Sims will indeed be part of Rebuilding Together Dayton’s annual rehabbing event, but not in the way she expected or hoped. She suffered a serious stroke in September, leaving her with decreased mobility as well as significant financial stress. After reviewing the applications, Cox and his wife Sue, a Rebuilding Together board member, didn’t hesitate before selecting Sims’ house as this year’s project for their church, Shiloh United Church of Christ. “She is a wonderful lady,” Cox said, “and she deserves a little help.”

Sue was touched that Sims expected so little. “I know there are many needy people in Dayton,” she told the couple, “so I understand if my application isn’t chosen. But I would appreciate some Visqueen sheeting and duct tape so I can get my windows taped up.”

Recalled Sims, “It never crossed my mind that I would be the next year’s recipient. I was having a lot of fun and helping my neighbor.”

Rebuilding Together contractors already have inspected and repaired her furnace and her new friends from the Shiloh Church have stocked her pantry with low-salt foods. “I have been so depressed and stressed and miserable and hungry a lot of the time,” Sims said. “I didn’t want to tell people I was hungry.”

She said she’s no longer hungry now that Sue and Roger Cox have adopted her. “They are good caring people,” she said. “They didn’t look down their noses because my roof leaks and my ceiling is falling in.”

This is the home where she raised her four boys. She has lived here for 28 years, most of them as a homemaker, although she also worked as a Head Start teacher. She always considered herself middle-class, but fell on hard times after her separation from her husband several years ago.

On April 24, work crews will rebuild her kitchen cabinets as well as replace her door which is currently stuffed with Kleenex to keep the wind out. “I didn’t want to ask for help,” Sims said softly. “I didn’t want people to know how bad I was living.”

Rebuilding Together Dayton President Amy Radachi said Sims’ story exemplifies the spirit of the agency which coordinated the efforts of 1,300 volunteers rehabbing 23 houses last year. That’s a significant increase from the first Rebuildng Day in 1996, which drew 250 volunteers to refurbish eight houses. Yet Radachi said that impact could be tenfold if the federal government changed its regulations for Neighborhood Stabilization Plan (NSP) funds. “Currently the money is used to tear down vacant properties or or to purchase, rehab, or resell, foreclosed-upn properties,” Radachi explained. “Not a penny can go to owner-occupied homes. We define neighborhood stabilization as keeping existing homeowners in their homes in a safe environment. Apparently Congress considers neighborhood stabilization as neighborhood evacuation.”

Radachi supports U.S. Rep. Mike Turner’s proposed bill, HR 3204, which would allow NSP money to be spent to renovate owner-occupied housing for low-income families. Radachi will travel to Washington, D.C., next week to meet with area legislators in support of the bill.

She hopes she can help more embattled homeowners such as Verdell Sims.

“There are no words for the way it feels,” Sims said, “when you get the help that you need so desperately.”

Next year, though, she hopes to be back on the work crew. “If the Lord gives me strength,” she said, “I hope to be back up and at ‘em.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209 or mmccarty@DaytonDailyNews.com. For more information about Rebuilding Day, visit www.rtdayton.org.

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