Deferrals and walk-aways - but at what cost?
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Eeesh…
Credit: New Opportunities, Inc., Iowa HHS
Deferrals and walk-aways - but at what cost?
While I’m sure we’re not proud of the fact, most of us have walked into a home and thought, “I’ve got to find a reason to cancel this inspection and get out of this place as quickly as possible.” Carpets made of animal feces, hoarded possessions like canyon walls, mountains of garbage, on-going cockroach and bedbug conventions, leaking roofs and flooded basements, bats in the belfrey, actual nazis, or just a client who has proven they excel at being a pain in the…whatever the reason, justifiable or not, I’m sure all of us have done it. It’s a perfectly reasonable and human thing to do. It’s self-preservation.
Sometimes this job feels like Mission: Impossible. Sometimes it looks like it too…
Credit: SCKEDD, KHRC
That said, the decision to walk away from a project is a serious one and should be made with intent, and only after due diligence and deliberation. Our program or organization's policies are usually put in place to protect the client, the organization, their staff, contractors, or the program itself. However, choosing to defer and walk away from a dangerous home like the one pictured above (and the one with the scary water heater and the wall held together by a “mold-like substance”) for the “greater good” of protecting an amazing and powerful program like WAP can have dire consequences as well. The difference is that the consequences are shown on the front page of the local newspaper, not the national one.
So, then we have to ask ourselves an age-old question: what is to be done?
I can say with certainty that I have undertaken projects that I knew I would regret because the client was in desperate need of help. Sometimes it worked out alright, and I slept well knowing I did the (mostly) right thing to help a fellow human. Sometimes it turned into a living nightmare that dragged on for months and left me fearing for my job, but you know what?
I still slept well.
Rules are often necessary and sometimes hard. They’re put in place to protect people. That’s why it’s so important to know them and, perhaps most importantly, to be involved in their development. So, the next time you hear about a committee meeting to have hard conversations about how your program runs, I hope you’ll volunteer. Because you’re either in the kitchen or you’re on the menu.
And we’re all already just one bad day away from being an appetizer.
Thanks to everyone out there making these hard choices. I trust that, despite the challenges, you’re sleeping well knowing that your work makes life better for people who matter…even when it makes your life a little more complicated.
-C
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War Elephants and A Dog Named Sisu
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This is one of my dogs. His name is Sisu (Zee-soo). More on that later…but predictably, he’s a real good boy.
I didn’t intend to launch our blog like this, but…
There are days when I wonder if this whole thing is worth it; when I wonder, “Man, what the f*ck are we doing?”
We recently had a man come in to recertify his BPI Energy Auditor certification. He told us that he would be furloughed the following week. He was grateful that his employer had sent him to recertify beforehand, as it gave him some opportunity to be rehired later or to find work elsewhere within the industry.
We also had an organization contact us to cancel a staff member’s recertification just days before it was due to expire because that staff member was being laid off. They felt that the funds for recertifying their staff member would be more impactful if they were spent on a client’s home.
When we hear about our partners furloughing staff members, about friends and long-time colleagues finding themselves suddenly unemployed, when I see the same old systems failing the same old people, again and again, it’s hard not to feel like we’re bailing water from a sinking ship with our bare hands.
Yeah…like this.
But then I remember: it is our privilege to learn and to share our knowledge with people whose work keeps our neighbors safe and warm. We have the opportunity to serve our friends and communities by equipping passionate people with the tools necessary to make homes healthy, livable, and sustainable. And that is not nothing. That is our work. That is resistance. That is love in action.
Say what you want about Rage Against the Machine, but this guy had a point.
Despite what some may say, weatherization is not a band-aid — it’s a beginning. It's the scaffolding we use to build societal equity, brick by brick, blower door by blower door. We often work with people who have never had anyone invest in them before. We see the sparks of confidence ignite in the eyes of people who thought they’d never be more than their circumstances. Then we watch as those people go on to ignite that spark in another person. And another. And another. And that is the legacy we are crafting, day after day: Each one, teach one.
So yes, the federal winds are changing. Funding is…fickle. It’s no longer just our clients with desperation in their eyes, but our friends, our colleagues, ourselves. Policies feel like shifting sand under our boots. To deny these truths is to live as though illusions are real. Those are facts that we may not like, but we must accept.
But our mission? It hasn’t changed, and it doesn’t vanish with the next election cycle, nor the one after that. We are rebuilding dignity and resilience — in homes, in individuals, and in entire communities — until we are no longer needed.
When the path ends, some turn back. Others — those with dirt under their nails and purpose in their chest — keep going. They carve through ice and doubt. They build where nothing was given. They live a life that can be defined by two words: Faciam and Sisu.
Faciam. I will make a way.
This isn’t just Latin. It’s a vow, a refusal to wait for permission, policy, or perfect conditions. It’s the approach that the work of helping people has always relied on. When funding dries up, when institutions stall, when the cold creeps in and the cracks widen, we don’t freeze. We move. We work.
And we move with Sisu.
Sisu was born in the ancient guts of the hardy people who inhabited what is now Finland. It has no perfect English translation because it isn't a word. It's a belief, a way of life, an ethos. It means grit beyond reason. Strength without fanfare. Determination as an end, not just a means. Sisu is what happens when perseverance and damned-stubborn tenacity become identity.
The Carthaginian General Hannibal managed to lead an army of 30,000 soldiers, 15,000 cavalry, and 37 war elephants across the Italian Alps in only 16 days.
Certainly, we will find a way to get some caulk and furnaces into our neighbors’ homes.
Faciam is what we do. Sisu is how we do it.
This work we do — this training business of ours — wasn't born from a market opportunity. It was born from the knowledge that all people and all families deserve more than mere survival, and that the restoration of human dignity isn’t an entitlement program. Weatherization is work that is worthy of doing, and deserving of being done with passion, with diligence, with intention, and with strength of conviction. With sisu.
So, we learn. We share. We work, advocate, learn, and share again. We pass knowledge from calloused hands to eager ones. Not for glory or ego. For principle. For dignity.
Our work isn’t glamorous. But when the storm comes — and it always comes — it’s our partners, our teams, our friends who hold the lines, man the rudders, and who row like hell. And we’re grateful to be a part of that.
I don’t have all the answers. Hell, I’m not very sure about anything. I don’t know what the next year will bring. I don’t know if our institutions will step up or crumble further. But I know this: we are still here. We are still learning. We are still sharing. We are still building.
So if we all go down, we will go down with our tools in our hands, having made a thousand homes warmer and a thousand families stronger. And when we reach the bottom, wherever that may be, we will use those tools to rebuild. Again and again, until the work is done and we're no longer needed.
Faciam. Sisu. We will make a way. And we won’t stop. And we trust that you will do the same.
Keep going.
We look forward to seeing you on the path. Call if you need anything — but make sure to leave a message...goddamned spammers drive us nuts.
-C and J
Postscript - If you find yourself looking for work, please let us know. We can’t do much, but we can help serve as a networking hub to connect people, and maybe together we can figure it out. We’re rooting for you.
What are your thoughts?
If you or your organization have been
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