PegTulsa  

I’m just sitting here musing on doing  good deeds  and remembering Dewey --  a site of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."  I drove up to gawk  and ended up volunteering.  I have heard some folks say that they feel the show "uses" folks in housing crisis. After being at "the site," those folks may be right. The family receiving this newly constructed home is the widow of a pastor and her five children. The woman  had to vacate the church-supplied housing after her husband died a year ago. All she could afford was a double-wide trailer –  a used construction site office and some land.

As the shuttle bus rounded the bend and the house came into view, it looked like they were constructing a church and not a residence. The house is huge -- over 5,000 square feet with six bedrooms.  There is no way the widow and her young children are going to be able to maintain it. Are the IRS taxes on the value of the house going to be paid?  The building costs for a normal house is about $70-$100 per sq. ft. That would value the house alone at approximately  a half million dollars. A local news reporter estimates the whole project at $1.1 million. There is no way a woman on a minister's pension is going to have the money to pay the taxes. or even pay a mortgage taken to pay the income taxes!   True, there are accounts set up for local donations, but this is a county where 12% of the population live below the poverty level and the average family income is $37,700.  How much can such a community realistically expect to donate to the family?   I can’t image the utility bills that would find their way into the family’s mail box, especially after a string of cold winter nights.

My impression is that Lock and Key Productions, the show’s production company and sells the program to ABC for broadcast on Sunday nights,  does not provide much, if any, of the building  financing or resources.  They seem to screen the applicants’ videos, hire a local contractor, and take the bows. From my “volunteer” vantage point, all the materials and skilled labor is donated.

The site amenities for those “working”  are a real joke.  I spent 2 hours in "the worker's tent" keeping the coffee going and helping to keep the site runners' trays full of cups with hot coffee.  We were in a 3-sided lean-to on a cold damp fall evening with a half-working propane radiant heater and no lights.  We were located next to the "VIP" tent. It was one of those "wedding tents:"   enclosed, warm and with sugar and creamer and real plastic flatware.  The worker’s tent had bulk creamer and 5 pound. sacks of sugar.  No dispensers.  No spoons.  The workers had to "go black"  with the rationalization that "at least it was hot.”  The VIP's had a lovely dinner, while the workers and volunteers have to make do with whatever a restaurant donates to get on the credits. It was crazy. An hour after the night shift’s dinner break, 100 pizzas were delivered. Of course, nobody was hungry -- they just ate. It was very chilly and the pizzas quickly turned cold.  All that food just wasted. . That TV clip of the show’s host thanking the people working on the project?  It was taped in the VIP tent.  So much for recognizing the just plain folks doing the work.


As I was going back to the car, I saw a team painting a mural on a building. This was the "well house" for the domestic  water  pumping equipment. There were trompe l' oeil rock walls and a scene of mustangs roaming the plains. The family also has a new horse barn (the house is in the middle of a wooded area.)  The workmanship reminded me of a theater set.  It looked wonderful at a distance.  Up close (or as close as I could get)  there was no hint of craft.  The copper work over the bay windows was just bumpy sheets of copper.  Not the classic curved copper panels.  In an area where severe thunderstorms are common, the roof adornments were  copper (including a steeple with a copper cross.)  I didn't see anything that would have indicated that there was any thought of putting a lightening rod system on the structure.

Seeing the show’s “behind the scene” operations, the money would be better spent donated to Habitat for Humanity.  In Washington County, !.6 % of housing still used wood as a primary fuel source; 1.% had inadequate kitchens and 0.6% has substandard plumbing. Twelve percent of the county’s population live under the poverty level.   Habitat for Humanity can build a house for approximately $65,000 and are designed to be energy and upkeep efficient.  For what was spent in Dewey on this Hollywood glitz publicity project, Habitat for Humanity volunteers could construct at least 15 homes.  But then the corporate sponsors wouldn’t get their names on a top-rated, award-winning  TV show.  The volunteer labor pool is here.  During my time at the registration area, people were being “put on hold” hoping they would tire of waiting and leave.  Evidently,  no volunteer was to be turned away, just ignored long enough so they got the message.

There is no way a family "needs" or " deserves" a 5,000 sq. ft. house, with a horse barn in the middle of a woodland when the neighborhood are living in disintegrating cabins and ancient trailers.   But it garners advertizement revenue, ratings and Emmy nominations.

Oh, I did received a T-shirt diploma for my education on Hollywood's brand of do-gooding for ratings.

I came too close to TV magic.