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The NJRA's "Operation Good Samaritan" since 1984 has helped families in need. These families have been ripped off by non-NJRA members or they couldn't afford the repairs necessary, such as handicapped ramps. The NJRA's Operation Good Samaritan has donated thousand of dollars and manual labor, that has been recognized by some local newspapers. The following articles are cited from said newspapers:
Remodelers Earn Praise for Ethics
Eileen Smith
November 27, 2000
Courier Post
It was a very bad business for Mary and Don Bastian.
The couple had made a deal with a contractor to build a first-floor bedroom and bath for Mary Bastian, who hasn't been able to climb the stairs since she suffered a stroke; Mary cashed in her 401(k) plan and Don withdrew the couples savings from the bank to make the down
payment on the job, $12,000 in all.
The contractor took the money and agreed to renovate the Bastians' two-story colonial in Willingboro. But he never did the work-not even
when the kindly, trusting couple bailed him out of jail so he could get back on the job.
In most cases, the Bastians would have lost their savings, the victims of an unsrcupulous businessman and their own naivete.
But Mary and Don, who is disabled by heart disease and arthritis, were rescued by a group of caring, upright contractors from the New Jersey
Remodelers Association. They took on the Bastians' job, donating labor and materials.
"We're very thankful, but grateful isn't strong enough a word," Don Bastian says. "It was a godsend."
Tom Madden, executive director of the association, says members wanted to do something to make up for the damage caused by an unethical contractor, even though the man who took the Bastians' money didn't belong to the group.
While remodeling as an industry typically leads the nation in consumer complaints. Madden says the New Jersey group hasn't had an
unresolved dispute since 1981. He is proud of its record, which has been lauded by consumer watchdog Herb Denenberg and Renee Borstad, director of the Burlington County Office of Consumer Affairs.
Don Bastian notes the contractors who donated their efforts could easily have been out making money instead of doing a good deed.
"They gave of their own time in one of their busiest years in decades," he says. "It's an unbelievable gift."
The addition-which included an extension of the family dining room, a bedroom and a handicap-accessible bathroom-is valued at $50,000.
Mary Bastian says another gift the contractors gave her is beyond price.
"They brought a lot of blessings into our home," she says. "They restored my faith."
Elmer Adams, owner of E.J. Adams
Construction Co. in Riverton, manged the project. But Madden notes many more of the association's members donated their time or contributed materials.
Conducting business in a compassionate, ethical manner is more than a good way to earn a living.
"At the end of the day, you can be proud of how you've conducted yourself and your business,"
he says.
The Bastians feel content at the end of the day now, too. Thanks to the remodelers, they can once again share a room. Uplifted by the
generosity of the contractors, they can devote their energies to good deeds, too, working for the Adopt-a-Family Christmas program.
"after all the goodness we've received, we'll repay it by doing good for somebody else," Mary says.
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Remodeling industry aids 'ripoff' victims
Ann Siever
April 14, 1985
The Sunday Star-Ledger
Aileen Flood lived for months in a house without heat or air conditioning, without windows to let in the sun, in a kitchen without appliances, her clothes in closets without doors. She wasn't roughing it in a wilderness cabin. She was living in the once-pretty home at 324 Roberts Ave., Bellmawr, she had shared with her husband and five daughters for 29 years-a home she says was virtually destroyed by a remodeler who allegedly took $32,000 to update the house and then left it in a shambles.
"He really pulled the house apart," Flood said. "He disconnected
the furnace, ripped out the bath, pulled doors off closets, removed
windows.
"Then one day, nearly five months after he started the job, he
phoned to say he wasn't coming back
"He said he didn't have the money to finish the job. And when I protested, he just said 'you'll get your money' and hung up."
Flood, 61, whose steelworker husband died last year, carried her
dilemma to township officials, to a consumer group, finally to a lawyer who is now trying to recoup her money. And she and two of her daughters continued to live,
primitive-style, in the house on Roberts Avenue.
"I didn't want to sell it or abandon it because my husband had built it himself, with his own hands-and so I continued to live in it," Flood explained.
"We slept on the living room floor during those awful hot summer
months. It was too stifling to sleep in the bedrooms. The window
had been boarded up in one bedroom and there was no window at all in the other."
What about meals?
"We used an old stove and refrigerator we put in the dining room," she said.
Flood said she never bothered to check her renovator out, get
references or estimates from other craftsmen.
"At first, he wanted $17,000 to add two rooms to the house and to
renovate it," she reported. "Then he wanted another $15,000 to redo the kitchen and add new appliances.
"I gave him the $32,000, practically my entire life savings.
"All I got for it was a house that looked like a cyclone hit it. And the kitchen appliances I paid for were never even delivered; let alone installed."
Luckily, news of Flood's plight reached the New Jersey Remodelers Association (NJRA) of Cherry Hill and its unique Operation Good Samaritan.
That program was started a year earlier by NJRA's executive director Thomas J. Madden to help an elderly Mr. Laurel couple who were ripped off for $2,300-totally wiping out their savings-by a remodeling contractor who promised them a new kitchen and then failed to deliver.
NJRA came to the rescue, installing a new kitchen worth nearly $5,000-gratis.
"That project was pretty bad. It looked like World War III," NJRA board chairman Tony Iacono recalled. "But I can't envision anything worse than this Flood experience. This was the worst mess I had ever seen in my life."
Iacono's A-Timberline Contracting Corp. of Stratford contributed
virtually all of the labor on the Mr. Laurel house and it was ready
to do the same for the Bellmawr house. Other labor and materials
were donated or provided below-cost by contractors throughout
the area.
"We literally had to renovate the entire Flood house," Iacono said.
He guessed the job was worth $40,000. Flood's cost was
$18,400. And the NJRA arranged a $15,000 15-year load a 9.95 per cent through the Home Improvement Loan Program of the New Jersey Mortgage Finance Agency to cover most of the cost.
But Madden points out, Operation Good Samaritan is more than
just a helping hand. "We want to graphically show the overwhelming need for the statewide licensing of contractors because of these horror stories which occur all too often," he said.Toward that end, State Senator Lee B. Laskin (R-6th) will introduce a licensing bill that will require contractors to take tests to prove their competency. It would prevent the issuance of local building permits to contractors without a license. Do-it-yourselfers would not be affected.
"A person's biggest investment is generally his home," Madden
said. "Yet no proof of professional competence is required by those who remodel or improve it."
A big advantage of such licensing would be that "consumers would have a quick and highly effective means of settling complaints because would be lifted or suspended and fines imposed for any violation of the licensing act," Madden said.
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