(EDITOR’S NOTE: Last week, THE GEORGIA BULLETIN featured an interview with Mr. and Mrs. William Ear Brewer, clients of the Archdiocesan Rehab Project. This week, Mr. Daniel S. Thorpe gives his observations of the Project. The Rehab effort is one of the five local programs receiving funds from the Campaign for Human Development.)

Dan Thorpe is the area housing code inspector for Grant Park and the South East Model Cities area. His job is to inspect homes in his territory, and determine whether they measure up to city code standards.

Minnie and William Ear Brewer learned during the summer that their small home violated the standards of the housing code. They have lived in their house on Cherokee Place for the past sixteen years. It has slowly deteriorated, and with a very limited fixed income, the couple had no means to repair their home. They were given three months to bring the little residence up to standard.

CHD money, put to work by volunteers from ten Atlanta parishes, had the home ready for inspection after five Saturdays of work.

Dan Thorpe inspected the home, and approved it for the Brewers.

“I have a frustrating, heartbreaking kind of job,” he says. “There are so many people like the Brewers who are locked into their situations. They don’t want to move. They can’t move. But usually, they can’t get any help either.

“Federal and city programs don’t really respond to people like the Brewers. Vocational trade schools and local businesses, which could make an impact in alleviating sub-standard housing, are for the most part uninvolved with the poor.

“Church and community programs like the archdiocesan Rehab Project are the only means these deserving people have.

“The quality of work, and the interest that went into the rehab of the Brewer’s home was so impressive. I rarely see people at work for reasons other than the profit motive.

“We have a suspense file at the Housing Code Office, which identifies many elderly people in the same predicament as the Brewers. Unfortunately, the only people who ever ask to see our files are people trying to sue us, or each other.”

Mr. Thorpe concluded, “We housing inspectors don’t bring help, and we usually know there’s not much hope for the people we deal with. The Rehab Project, in a few instances at least, is trying to turn that around.”