Sounds well-intentioned, but ill-conceived -- how many people are low income but still afford to own & maintain a house in expensive Mountain View, AND need only ~$1500 in repairs? (or if it's much higher, they wouldn't really need the help). No wonder it's not widely used.

Plus -- anyone in that group would have bought their house so long ago that they have ridiculously low property tax thanks to Prop 13, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars in appreciation on the home -- why do they need additional benefits from the city? Take out a reverse mortgage to pay for repairs, since the home would be worth so much.

I see your point, but...

How about all these people who are currently unemployed or under employed? We live in a house worth alot, but our income is currently $0. To pay the mortgage and feed our kids, we are not doing maintanence on the house. I may take them up on this.

I think there are more people than you realize. CSA sees them every day.

Perhaps part of the parrroblem is that if you go to csacares.org and look under services there is nothing about home repair listed? Kinda hard to request it if there's no info about it on the site, isn't it?

The CSA is such a valuable community resource and another reason I think Mountain View is one of the best cities to live in anywhere.

And, yes there are many people in the area who are hanging on to their homes with every tooth and nail that could use help with maintenance items as they are usually neglected in lew of paying mortgages, utilities and food.

Now if only "one of the best cities to live in anywhere" would set some basic standards for residential rental units and enforce those standards with inspections, those of us paying extravagant rents to live here might be able to enjoy it more.

Not likely, but it would be nice.

Obi One?

We called, left a message, and no one called back. Pretty weak for "one of the best cities to live in anywhere". Just sayin...

What qualifies as low income? I lost my job 2 years ago and make no salary. My brother works but he certainly would qualify for low income help. We would be considered as two people living under the poverty level. No kidding. So I would wonder if we qualify as low income...

All of a sudden everyone is looking for a hand out.

I wonder why there isn't more private charity available for this sort of thing. I mean, retired contractors who would be willing to help people (elderly, or destitute) with little odd jobs like this, rather than having to be paid for doing it out of the public purse.

I get the impression that people used to do this sort of thing for each other, just out of a general feeling of neighborliness. Where did that go?

...All of a sudden we find out that the CSA has this kind of help available...so a hand out---well I will admit to that. I am certainly low income, with hardly any money coming in....Enough said.