$30K needed to finish White house

KNIK — The effort to build a house for double-amputee Jim White is so close to completion organizers can almost see the end.

But it’s far enough away to be very frustrating.

“I know a big part of it is that people don’t have money right now because the damn banks are sitting on it and won’t loan money to anyone,” said Israel Nelson, the Valley real estate agent who is leading the charge. “It’s just a really bad time right now, and I know that.”

With $30,000, though, he could get the job done. People are lined up ready to get to work. But without the money they can’t get started.

“They’re trying to get ready to move ahead,” Nelson said. “They want to get it finished. I want to get it finished.”

Jim White first came to Nelson’s notice through an article in the Frontiersman recounting his harrowing slog through the health care and Social Security bureaucracy. White lost both his legs to peripheral artery disease. Coping with the loss of his legs brought out a lot of White’s creativity and problem-solving abilities, but left him broke and living in a trailer that had long passed its useful lifetime.

White has added a number of home-built fixes to the trailer, but its hallway is too narrow for his wheelchair and the roof leaks badly enough to require near constant attention.

“The trailer is getting more and more leaky. In fact, the leak is getting worse,” Nelson said.

After he read about White’s situation and seeing for himself the state of the trailer, Nelson launched the fund-raising effort to build the house. Local contractors came on board and various merchants contributed what they could. Churches have stepped in to hold fund-raisers and to set up a fund to accept donations.

But the effort has lost momentum since Nelson started the ball rolling back in 2009.

Added to that problem are troubles White and his family have had lately with their vehicle, which hasn’t been working for most of the winter, and his wife’s health. Lately she’s been laid up with pneumonia.

Nelson said earlier this week White hitchhiked from his home near the end of Knik-Goose Bay Road all the way into town to get to a doctor’s appointment.

Donations to the project can be made at United Protestant Church in Palmer to the Low Cost Housing Fund. The church’s mailing address is 713 S. Denali St., 99645. Nelson said anyone with questions or things to donate can contact him at 354-2268.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.