On Sept. 11, 2001, employees at Universal Lending Corp. were no different than people everywhere: They were glued to their TVs, as the horror of the terrorist attacks unfolded.
“Then, on Sept. 12, 2001, everyone was still watching TV,” recalled Peter Lansing, president of Universal Lending, one of the largest locally owned mortgage banking companies in Denver, and a sponsor of . “And on Sept. 13, they were still watching TV.”
It came to the point that Lansing began to become worry about productivity. Rather than offer employees financial incentives, he motivated them with an altruistic goal: Every loan they made, a percentage of the profit would be set aside with the idea of sending $100,000 on Jan. 2, 2002 to the American Red Cross in New York to help deal with the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.
The employees went back to work, and it worked. They met their goal.
“If you remember, what happened is that the Red Cross said that Americans were so generous, that the money was coming in faster than they could put it to use,” Lansing said. News reports at the time said that the American Red Cross had raised more than $1 billion by early 2002, but had spent $154 million, and closed a special fund earmarked to deal with Sept. 11.
What to do?
“So we had $100 grand, sitting there, and had to decide what to do with it,” Lansing said. “And that is how the was born.”
It’s one thing to raise the money, another thing on how to spend it.
“Since we are in the real estate business, we wanted to do something involving housing,” Lansing said. “There are a lot of housing issues, such as the homeless issues.” But he was drawn to helping seniors.
“We were familiar with housing issues faced by seniors, because of our reverse mortgage program,” Lansing said. “A lot of seniors can’t maintain their houses. Deferred maintenance can create unsafe and dangerous places for them to live. It also can lower the value of their homes. We decided if we could help seniors maintain their homes, we might help keep them out of foreclosure, if they had to sell.”
The program is called Adopt-A-Home. Typically, they spend up to $5,000 on a home, mostly on the outside of the homes, he said. On occasions, however, they have done even bigger jobs.
Adopt-A-Home grows
Lansing didn’t want to say how much money they have raised, but it is substantial. Also, they have teamed up with other companies and individuals to help with Adopt-A-Home. On Nov. 19, Lansing lauded partners for their hard work. Partners included Universal Lending employees, Advantage Credit Inc., Heritage Title Co. and Richey May Co.
Mary Wells, the executive director of the program and an Universal Lending employee, said volunteers typically do not do very much inside of a home for liability issues. Volunteers spend one day a month on homes they have adopted on such things as:
- Cleaning yards
- Trash removal
- Gutter cleaning
- Replacing broken porch steps
- Replacing carpet on porches,
- Painting
- Landscaping yard to eliminate future maintenance
- Tree and bush trimming
- Installing railings on front porches
- Rebuilding broken fences and gates.
One of the seniors who has been helped through Adopt-A-Home was Mable Banks, a 67-year-old retired woman who lives in the Park Hill area.
She was recommended for the program by a fellow parishioner at the church she attends, the Pilgrim Right Baptist Church. She said having her home adopted has been a God-send.
“I had more weeds in my lawn than blue-grass,” Banks said. “They took out all of the grass and weeds and put down some kind of plastic sheeting to kill the weeds. They they put chips down in one area, rocks in one area, and chips in another area. They made me a little flower-bed area, and took out these big old stones. I’m going to put in some big pots out there.”
The volunteers also removed an old shed in her backyard. “It was really dilapidated,” she said. “They also took down some limbs off a tree, and cleaned up a bunch of branches. They also hauled away a lot of junk and trash back there. Things like old chairs, old boxes, and an old barbecue pit. I had an old lawnmower back there that wasn’t working and they took that away.”
She’s lived in the home for the past 21 years, and it now looks great, she said. “I’m really happy with it,” Banks said. “It has a different look. I would think it has raised the value of my home. Nobody would buy a home the way it looked before, with all the weeds and junk in it.”
Banks said the Adopt-A-Home program is helping her entire neighborhood. She said she knows of about five others houses in her neighborhood that have been been spruced up by volunteers with Adopt-A-Home. She said it was so beneficial, that she wants to spread the word to others.
“I’m recommending several other seniors for the program.”
