Home Depot, Senior Alliance help couple to be ‘Safe at Home’

On June 11, about 50 cars were parked along rural Fret Road in Van Buren Township as volunteers from eight Home Depot stores and The Senior Alliance helped a couple in their 90s to be “Safe at Home.”
The “Safe at Home” project was begun by The Senior Alliance, based in Wayne, nine months ago to assist seniors and individuals with disabilities to remain in their homes.
Ruby Hanes, 93, called The Senior Alliance in January seeking help. She said she and her husband William, 92, were trying to help with the health care of their daughter. It has been hard and they had no food at Christmas.
Kimberly Dobson of The Senior Alliance listened to her and put the “Safe at Home” project into gear. She called Home Depot for their first cooperative project.
She also linked the couple up with other resources.
Brian Fitzgerald from the Plymouth store is captain of the Team Depot volunteers and he came out and looked around the Hanes’ home to identify trip hazards and other things that could be done for the couple.
Dobson coordinated the plans and enlisted about 15 Senior Alliance volunteers who wore bright yellow shirts last Thursday.
Thirty volunteers in bright orange shirts from eight Home Depot stores descended on the Hanes home and started their work. They were from the stores in Ann Arbor, Plymouth, Commerce, two Canton stores, Fenton, Novi, and Livonia.
A Boy Scout working on his Eagle award also was volunteering at the site.
The Senior Alliance coordinated the work day, but it was the Home Depot Foundation that paid for everything and Team Depot provided the volunteers.
Many volunteers did yard work, cutting back vegetation along the long drive to the couple’s home and raking around plants. Trees and bushes were being trimmed. Home Depot paper bags were being packed with yard waste.
The house was a beehive of activity where a new bathtub with a door in its side for safe entry had been installed in the renovated bathroom.
In the kitchen a new refrigerator and gas range were installed. Ruby said her old stove was good, but the oven didn’t work. She said she had paid for two $80 service calls and bought a thermostat and it still didn’t work.
Home Depot also installed a new water tank and storm doors.
Ruby said men had been working at the front door all morning. That’s where a team was installing a sturdy, metal hand railing along the cement porch. They’ve never had a railing there before, William said.
And there was much more going on. At lunch time there was a generous picnic laid out for all the workers. Ruby and William took their portions into a quiet corner at their kitchen table.
Ruby explained part of the problem they had encountered. William is a World War II veteran and he didn’t get a pension because some government offices had burned and destroyed the records.
She said he had his ribbons, discharge papers, and other documents but that wasn’t enough. She said she’d been working since 2013 to get the pension and it just came through in 2015. She said now he is officially 100% disabled.
William said he was in the U.S. Infantry, Third Division, and served in Italy.
Senior Alliance said they concentrate on getting help for veterans.
William said they no longer own the house Mr. Robson built for them more than 40 years ago. It’s now owned by Financial Freedom through a reverse mortgage but they can live there until they die.
William said he’s really sorry they no longer have the house which he said would be worth $100,000 or $200,000 now.
Ruby said when they were building the house on this property they were told that all the top soil had been sold and they’d never be able to grow anything. She said she picked up the soil in her hands and promised to grow things.
She pointed to all the yucca plants getting ready to bloom along her long drive and the other healthy plants being trimmed and tended by the volunteers to underline her success. An engraved wooden sign proclaims their home as “Hanes Hacienda.”
William said he was a young man when he got out of the Army and he went to work for Ford Motor Co. and retired after 30 years.
He built a barn out of wood recycled from buildings in Detroit. It’s behind the house and has a studio apartment upstairs where their daughter lives. She has no Social Security income and she is ill and they are helping her get what she needs.
“I can’t believe it’s happening,” Ruby said referring to all the activity at her home. “It’s people helping people. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”