COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio - Charlotte Kief doesn’t know what she would have done without People Working Cooperatively.
Now, with budget cuts threatening that agency, she hopes nobody who relies on PWC like she does has to find out.
The Colerain grandmother says she has been raising three grandkids over the past six kids. She says their parents struggle with drug abuse.
"There's going to be difficulties, but the main thing is I'm giving them a stable home,” Kief said. “I'm giving them rules, which they don't like … stability … and I'm keeping them busy."
Kief was going through the application process in order to adopt the kids.
"The background check, the home study, FBI check, the whole 9 yards," she said.
But then came an unexpected problem – one that threatened their safety and put the adoption on hold.
"My furnace goes out and I didn't know what to do,” Kief said. “I worked on it myself, I got it working. I got me some WD-40 and I flip the thing and I got it working."
But little did she know her homemade fix was flammable and highly dangerous.
“It's difficult,” Kief said. “You just have those moments like, ‘What do I do next?’"
That's when PWC stepped in to help.
"He got a part and come back - poof - put it on and you see it's hot in here," Kief said.
PWC helped fix her broken front door as well.
“It wouldn't even close. It wouldn't even go back," she said.
It's all part of PWC’s mission to help people who financially and physically can't take care of home repairs on their own.
"There is no one else in the community like PWC that has the ability to serve these low-income homeowners around the clock," said Chris Owens of PWC.
Due to proposed budget cuts in Hamilton County, there's a chance more that 750 services may be cut.
"If it wasn't for people like PWC, people like me wouldn't be able to make it," said Kief.
County commissioners will make their final budget decision Wednesday and reveal its impact to PWC’s funding future.
In the meantime, Kief got good news on the adoption process. A few days ago Child Protective Services came out to reevaluate the home and now the adoption process is nearly complete.
