The Crutch Foundation was born from a deep sense of compassion and necessity.

In the early 1980s, after earning my EMT certification at Queens Community College and receiving further training from the Auxiliary Rescue division of the NYC Police Department, I served as a Tech and Driver on a NYC Ambulance.

Working in upper Manhattan and the Bronx allowed me to witness firsthand how health challenges, accidents, and financial hardship could threaten families and their homes.

Everyday, tens of thousands of people find themselves trapped in homes that once were secure and nurturing – only to lose them in times of crisis.

Premature placements in nursing homes or shelters and the splitting up of families is too common today, as it was then, with some families never able to reunite.

Hitting the wall

Some years later, my wife Ivette and I moved our family to Pennsylvania and joined a local church.

It wasn’t long before we noticed members gradually disappearing from regular attendance.

Reaching out, we discovered these new friends were living in homes that were becoming dangerous to them.

While their minds were sharp as tacks, their bodies were having a hard time keeping up.

They needed handrails, ramps and ADA improvements to extend the useful lives of their homes, not themselves.

For someone living on a modest fixed income, not paired with inflation, most life-enhancing improvements are beyond reach for them.

Financial Strain

With our small family construction company, we tried helping those who couldn’t afford important repairs and maintenance, but this led to an unsustainable financial strain for us.

The knee jerk reaction of some banks and other sharks is to feast on the misery of people as they gobble up family legacies, destroying generational wealth.

Most banks will foreclose a family’s home, selling them for pennies on the dollar, rather than restructuring mortgages that allow people to get back on their feet.

Through the years

Watching my own parents suffer similar struggles, only strengthened my conviction: “Someone should be doing something to help people hitting these walls in life”.

We the people seem conditioned to wait for government intervention, and then we are disappointed by waste, fraud and abuse.

So, after years of watching homeowners (people and families) broken up, with no real safety net, it became obvious no one was coming.

Hopefully you will never need to know, but – Who will be there for you or your family?

James 4:17 (KJV) says “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”

In other words – If you know how to help, you should.

My family and I realized we had talents, skills and resolve that made us uniquely qualified to accept this challenge, so we did.

As a family we formed The Crutch Foundation for the benefit of other families right here in the USA.

It’s a foundation built on faith, skill, and love for families who deserve dignity and security in their own homes.