Real Estate Professionals for Affordable Housing (REPAH)
Project: Emergency and critical home repairs for low-income homeowners
Request: $15,000
Your gift fixes it this week, not next winter.
REPAH — Real Estate Professionals for Affordable Housing in East Jefferson County — has one goal: keep low-income Jefferson County residents safely in their homes so they don't become homeless.
The work is critical repairs, safety improvements and accessibility upgrades. Those reduce housing instability, lower utility costs through energy efficiency, extend independent living for seniors and people with disabilities, prevent neighborhood blight, and let people age in place with dignity. As REPAH puts it: if people don't have to spend money on a repair, they can save it for food, medication and other necessities.
In 2025 REPAH funded 25 households. Most clients are elderly. Many have a disability.
What sets REPAH apart: speed
Working with a trusted network of local contractors, REPAH can often begin a job within a few days of intake. When someone is without heat in winter, has a plumbing leak, an electrical fault or a septic emergency, that difference is enormous.
Deep roots in the local real estate community give REPAH both the relationships and the credibility to mobilize resources rapidly and responsibly. Volunteers help applicants complete paperwork, review income requirements, contact contractors, set up appointments and pay invoices promptly — so a contractor will take the next call too.
REPAH also partners with St. Vincent de Paul, Habitat for Humanity and the Boeing Bluebills when a situation is bigger than any one of them.
A safe home keeps people in their home
Here’s a fact that might surprise you: sometimes a person delays surgery because the hospital requires that they have a safe place to go afterward — and their home isn't safe. They need a ramp, or grab bars.
REPAH can supply those. Which means a home repair organization is occasionally the reason a medical procedure actually happens.
More broadly, a homeowner on a fixed income often cannot save toward a failed water heater while going without hot water, and a roof leak doesn't wait politely for a savings plan. Costs of repairs have risen significantly in the last couple of years. So the repair goes unmade, conditions worsen, and eventually a safety issue forces someone out of a home they own outright.
Here are the problems you can help solve
REPAH received a one-time Department of Commerce Home Rehabilitation Grant in 2025. That allowed it to raise its $5,000 per-household maximum contribution and help 9 households with major repairs totaling $188,733 — plus 16 additional households with emergency repairs including septic, plumbing, electrical, heating and insulation, totaling $39,004.
There is no Department of Commerce grant this year, due to reduced funding at the state level.
Meanwhile requests keep climbing. In 2025, they had double the previous year's volume. REPAH helps as many people as it can until the money runs out, then maintains a waiting list.
What your donation makes possible
Funds go straight to materials and labor: water heaters, heaters, electrical supplies, plumbing supplies, lumber, roofing materials and contractor labor.
REPAH is an all-volunteer board, so almost all funding goes directly to people in need, with only a small portion for insurance, the website and tax filing fees. It typically spends between $30,000 and $50,000 a year, funded mainly by real estate brokers and affiliates who contribute a portion of their commissions, plus small grants.
There is always more need than funding. Your donation shortens the waiting list, and gets someone's heat back on.
