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Builders Help Install Basement Windows in Foster Homes
With its community imposing tighter licensing rules for its foster home program, the Home and Building Association of Greater Grand Rapids Foundation has awarded funds for a special new project to install windows in the homes of licensed foster parents.
Where basements spaces are used for sleeping, foster homes are now required to have windows that can provide a way to escape in the case of emergency, something that most homes in the area, especially those that are older, don’t have.
The egress window issue has compounded a shortage of licensed foster parents in Kent County, Mich.
Association member Bob Deppe, of RDI Development Co., has appealed to excavators, contractors and lumber yards to donate time and materials for three projects that are providing basement egress.
“There’s a huge need for foster families,” Deppe said. “To have someone lose their licensing over something like this would be a real shame.”
Deppe is a foster parent himself, and a board member of Home Repair Services, which in partnership with the builders association supports a Community Repair Day. 2005 marks the 14th year of this initiative.
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