3 months ago
"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" has selected a Buffalo family in need. Delores Powell and her four children live on Massachusetts Avenue on the city's West side.
2 On Your Side's Claudine Ewing spoke with the family. Excitement is an understatement. "I was so overwhelmed with joy that I was shaking," said Delores Powell. Her children, Anschell, 10; Debbie, 15; Gabby, 16; were equally as excited. "I felt like I wasn't even in my own body. I was just blown away," said Joel, 18, a student at LaFayette High School.
Delores Powell, a Jamaican immigrant and community activist whose home is barely livable despite the work and repairs she has poured into it over the past five and a half years. In just one week, team leader Ty Pennington, the design team, and hundreds of local volunteers led by David Homes will rebuild the crumbling home.
Twenty-two years ago, Delores Powell moved to the United States from Jamaica in search of the American dream. Making just $100 a week as a home health aide, she struggled to make ends meet. Delores worked hard to support herself and her growing family and became a U.S. citizen in May of 1999, but the accomplishment was overshadowed by the abusive nature of her relationship.
In 2002, after reaching her limit, Delores picked up her children and moved to Buffalo, NY, in search of affordable housing.
Delores struck a deal with the seller of a Massachusetts Avenue home personally but unfortunately, the seller failed to disclose that the house was on the city's demolition list.
Even after five and a half years of repair work, the family's home is barely livable.
She is an activist with the grassroots, non-profit community organization "PUSH Buffalo," that works to rebuild and improve the West Side of Buffalo.
The Powell family will go on vacation to Walt Disney World while "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and community volunteers rebuild their home.
