12A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2016
SHARP: ‘We’ve put down roots in our life’
Continued from Page 1A
‘Life-changing’
Funny thing is, Michelle and
her husband (who preferred to
withhold their last names from
publication) had never even
heard of SHARP until a friend
casually mentioned it, back
when the family of ¿ve was liv-
ing in an apartment near Asto-
ria High School.
“Literally the next day, I
went in and applied,” Michelle
said, “and here we are two
years later.”
And it was a rigorous two
years.
Mitchell helped them ¿nd a
three-bedroom house in Lyngs-
tad Heights with a backyard
that overlooks the Lewis &
Clark River. Built in 1972 on
0.28 acres, the 1,500-square-
foot house was badly in need of
a tune-up, which made it eligi-
ble for the program.
Luckily, the house had “the
right things wrong with it,”
Mitchell said. No compromised
foundations, no fundamental
Àaws.
Once the feds approved their
application, the family ended
up acquiring a loan with an
interest rate well below market
rate. They bought the house for
the $160,000 purchase price,
leaving several thousand dol-
lars for repairs and upgrades.
As he does with all his cli-
ents, Mitchell made sure
Michelle and Jason knew
exactly what they were getting
themselves into.
“What they sign up for is
serious. It’s life-changing,” he
said. “When their friends are
going to see a ball game or
(going) camping? Not these
guys. These guys got a job here
to do.”
Typically, SHARP develops
full subdivisions for people of
limited means to work on col-
lectively and then move into. A
single family working on their
own house is a rarity, Mitchell
said.
“In the state of Oregon,
Michelle and Jason will be one
of 15 families that’s ever pulled
this off,” he said.
Labor intensive
Under the guidance of their
foreman, Bruce Holz — who,
Michelle said, “makes the
impossible possible” — they
mended and modernized the
house with help from friends
and relatives, always meeting
or exceeded the required 30
hours of work per week.
“(SHARP doesn’t) do it for
you, they just show you how,
make sure you have the right
materials and know how to do
it,” Michelle said, “and then
it’s up to you,”
The couple contracted out
the drywall work, but they per-
sonally installed new windows,
gutted and reworked the bath-
rooms, put in new trim inside
and outside, resided the south
side and the entire garage, and
¿xed the back deck. Soon, they
will install new Àoors.
“It’s not for quitters,”
Michelle said of SHARP.
“After working on this
house for such a long time, you
feel like a licensed carpenter,”
Jason said. “Everywhere I go, I
see all kinds of stuff I want to
rip down and put up, and redo
this and do that ... It grows with
you.”
Photos by Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Jason walks through the backyard. The views and the lack of noise are two things that drew Michelle and Jason to the property.
When Jason and Michelle purchased the house, it had no
insulation in any walls or floors. Now the house is com-
pletely insulated.
A weatherization grant
from the Community Action
Team went toward insulating
the walls, Àoors and attic, and
installing a brand-new electric
furnace — a move that simul-
taneously lowered their utility
bills and boosted the home’s
value.
A separate loan — which
doesn’t have to be repaid
unless and until the couple
sells the house — allowed
them to add an insert to the
¿replace.
“There’s no confusion about
where this house is at and what
could go wrong with it,” Mitch-
ell said. “These guys know the
quality of their house.”
Putting down roots
Perhaps the most unex-
pected upshot for Michelle and
Jason is that, by going from
renters to homeowners, they
managed to cut their monthly
housing expenses by about
$100 — from $750 in rent to
a projected $650 (including
mortgage payments, property
taxes and homeowners insur-
ance) — while roughly dou-
bling their living space.
“Every person that I meet
that I give an application to,
or tell about the program —
no one knows anything about
it,” she said. “I don’t think it’s
a well-kept secret, I think that
people just don’t know their
resources in the towns that
they live in, and I was one of
them.”
Their three children — two
daughters, aged 14 and 11, and
a son, 7 — put their sweat
into the place as well, clean-
ing, painting baseboards and
hauling wood. The work —
and, especially, the long wait
to move in — was dif¿cult for
them.
But now the kids are look-
ing forward to growing up in a
real house, having parties and
making friends in a new neigh-
borhood, they said.
The
older
daughter
remarked that the multi-month
team effort “created a lot of
memories, and we bonded
more.”
The neighbors have wel-
comed the family, bringing
them cookies, fresh-based
fudge and elk chili.
“I still haven’t ¿gured out
who cut the grass,” Jason said.
“They did it twice. I’d love to
thank them.”
Michelle and Jason hope
this house — the one they
made their own, and know as
if they had built it themselves
— is their last, their “forever
home,” they said.
“We’re more stable,”
Michelle said. “We’ve put
down roots in our life.”
For sale: Grover ran the
store until the day he died
Continued from Page 1A
Within a minute or two,
Cassy Utzinger was ringing up
a box of ant traps for Phillips,
who reminisced about how the
store has helped her family
over the years.
“This place is an institu-
tion,” Phillips said, talking
about the time her husband
was irritated and in need of a
hod, an antiquated tool for car-
rying bricks.
Grover “went directly to
the hod, even with all these
things,” Phillips said. “It’s a
good place to be, and it’s a part
of America …”
“… that’s dwindling away,”
Cassy Utzinger ¿nished.
Grover Utzinger ran the
store until June 2, 2014, the
day he died. Cassy Utzinger,
who worked at her father’s
store for 22 years, left a job at
Wauna Mill to run her father’s
store, along with her brother
and sister and son Chance as
the newest employee. Fine
with being her father’s perpet-
ual runner-up in the product
knowledge department, Cassy
Utzinger said her hope was to
continue the operation as is.
The new buyer can change the
business or go with a differ-
ent supplier than True Value,
she said, but she hopes the
hardware store will continue.
The store has ¿elded interest
from a few parties, she added,
including one person who
asked if it would be alright to
keep the Utzinger name if they
took over.
Since her return to the
store, Cassy Utzinger said she
has had a few strange expe-
riences — merchandise Ày-
ing off a hanger, a small white
light moving across a security
camera — that have led her to
believe Grover Utzinger never
retired.
“I just think Dad’s still
here,” she said of her father’s
presence. “I think it’s Dad
checking on us.”
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Jason looks out of the window at his children playing in the front yard. One of the next
projects for Jason and Michelle is carpeting the floor in the living room.