COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW HOUSTON’S EXTREME MAKEOVER HOME GOT KNOCKED OFF SCHEDULE “We completed the house and the family was able to go inside and see the finished home fully furnished Monday night (8/2/10) around 10pm. The first year electrical service is being provided by Champion Energy. This is the 5th home we have built with EMHE and are very proud of what they do for families in need. I have personally met with several of the families and they are very grateful for what EMHE and the volunteers do for them. I just wish more people would have shown their Big Texas Hearts and would have come out to help. One building crew did not even show up for the night shift one night and it put the build behind by 30 hours! Thank you to everyone who did come out to help us complete this new home for the Johnson family.” [Rene, commenting on No, Not Finished Yet: Extreme Conditions After the Deadline at Houston’s Extreme Makeover House]
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Perhaps if they built an average sized home (say 2,400 sf but still large for the area) the build would have been completed on time and the owners would have a better chance of affording taxes and utilities going forward. I wish them all the best.
I appreciate that the volunteering trades have the very best of intentions in making one of these EMHE homes, BUT, I also assume that that the producers of the program wouldn’t start to roll tape if all the required trades were not lined-up and under contract!
Otherwise, the project becomes a Beg Fest, with the ‘host’ community looking like crap.
Sorry – bottom line: we don’t go for forced participation.
There was a post on one of these ‘makeover’ threads here on Swamplot by someone who said the producers were trying to dictate when the volunteers would work without regard to when the volunteers SAID they COULD work.
Puts a whole new spin on matters when they want you to volunteer during the hours you’re working your regular job!!
@Movocelot: You are spot on with your assessment….Amen! And there’s a definite sense of entitlement and a touch of arrogance in Rene’s comment above. With as much revenue as this show must produce, I can’t imagine that the production company is unwilling or unable to compensate for any construction short-fall in completing these homes, much less buy a few cases of Gatorade! Let’s not chide Houstonians for failing to provide the typical level of voluntary manpower and materials that help generate the excessive profits these so-called ‘charitable’ television programs typically reap. Rene’s comments make EMHE sound very greedy and entitled.
Again, if you want to see quality renovations, community outreach, and afordable housing alternatives in that neighborhood, you should look no further than Project Row Houses. That group changes lives. EMHE just makes me change the channel.
This comment really just stinks but then this whole “let’s do something nice for a family in need by providing them a huge house they couldn’t afford on their own and probably won’t be able to afford to keep at some point in the future” genre of “reality television” stinks.
Maybe they will come build a McMansion for the neighbors when they become homeless because they can’t pay the taxes on the new HCAD appraisals?
Maybe the producers should learn to keep their mouths shut about the volunteers given the fact that they themselves are not volunteers and probably have made a nice chunk of change off this one house in advertising dollars when it airs?
Maybe people with social consciences should not watch the show and boycott the advertisers?
The first year electrical service is being provided by Champion Energy.
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Can’t wait to see what happens when Champion Energy shuts off someone’s electricity.
“Why are you shutting off my electricity when you’re giving those people free electricity for a year?”
Taking these arrogant comments from Rene into account and seeing the way the general public is catching on to how this “charity” show works, i.e. asking (and guilting) a city for volunteers and donations to build a “white elephant,” all while the network takes home big profits, I think EMHA might be headed for “jumping the shark.”
“I just wish more people would have shown their Big Texas Hearts and would have come out to help”
Little old lady down the street needs some help and you will see my big ol’ Texas heart open up faster than greased lightnin.
Big money tv shows needs my help to increase their profit margins, well they can just go to Oklahoma.
What ticks me off about comments like this: this is not a charity. It’s not a non-profit doing good works in the community. It’s a television show doing this for ratings and for advertising dollars. I hate the way those calling for volunteers have spun this as helping a family in need, and chided people for not volunteering.
Television shows exist to make money, and this one is no exception. You can bet that if it wasn’t profitable, it wouldn’t be on the air. I resent the insistence that Houston professionals *should* volunteer to assist a moneymaking enterprise. The network can absolutely afford to pay people for their labor, and this begging for volunteers is tacky and dishonest.
Anyone taking bets on how long it takes them to be robbed?