My name is Gina Centauro, and I run a charity called Rescuing Families with my husband, Vinnie and my brother, Michael.

We rebuild homes for families in need to make them safe and handicapped accessible.

Our charity helps underprivileged families get back in their homes and live like normal human beings again.

That's the main goal of our charity.

Because everybody deserves to live in a home that's safe, comfortable and functional for their needs.

We don't want these people to feel forgotten.

We want them to know that there are people that want to help them have a better life.

That's how it's done, folks.

We searched our local community for families in need and chose these two brothers, John and Bruce.

Bruce had an accident where he fell and sustained a traumatic brain injury, which then left him paralyzed.

John is a hoarder and is no longer able to maintain their home.

We knew they had to be our first family rescue because of how desperate their living situation is.

We are going to make this house livable again so that John and Bruce can live together and just have a great life.

To me, a home is not just a thing.

It's almost like a family.

Family member.

It's, almost like a life and one that keeps you warm, cools you off to keep you safe.

John and Bruce have been living in the home they grew up in.

Bruce is staying in a group home because the house is not safe or livable for him.

Oh, yes.

when my brother got hurt, he was completely paralyzed from the neck down.

Hands, feet.

Everything.

Left side, right side.

He could not move me.

I was, I was nightmare.

I was screaming my brother's name to the top of my lungs, and I couldn't.

I couldn't, and I couldn't, And he couldn't hear me.

Trying to get John and Bruce back together in their home again.

Here.

Here's what we're going to do.

We're going to demolish the garage as it's an unsafe structure.

The house is suffered a lot of water damage.

You want to always guarantee a dry space before starting any interior renovations.

So we're going to replace the entire roof first.

We'll got the entire house and repair any damage to the structure to ensure it's safe.

Before we begin renovations, we're going to replace all the windows here.

Bruce's wheelchair presents an accessibility challenge, so we'll be designing a handicapped accessible bathroom, kitchen, eating area, and bedroom for Bruce.

Finally, we'll install a ramp so he can safely have access to the home.

All right, so one of the main reasons now why we have to take this garage down is the ridge being.

So beam has a major crack in it.

And that's what's supporting the left and right side of this structure.

So without that having solidness and support, these two roofs are going to cave in.

All right.

And luckily and surprisingly they haven't as of yet.

All right.

The second main reason why we're taking this structure down is all the rotten, tree fell on this property roughly 20 years ago.

Never got repaired.

So the water has just been pouring in here, deteriorating all the wood.

And lastly, how I'm going to take this structure down.

Well, what we're going to try we're going to put a hole in the left and the right side, put a strap around the ridge beam.

We're going to wrap that strap all the way around it straps and go straight to the car.

And we're going to give it a good pull on that.

And hopefully the structure will fall down flat.

That is the plan.

Plans don't always work out, but that's our plan.

All right.

Well hold on here for.

When John's father was alive, they spent so much quality time in this garage together.

John, being a hoarder, this is going to be so difficult for him to let this garage go.

We kept, so many things, and we didn't get rid of a lot of things.

The garage was filled to the rafters.

I'm in the process of trying to get help for him.

A professional organizer that deals with hoarders and a therapist that deals specifically with that issue.

When my mom, passed away and we had to leave the house, I felt like I was leaving her there because that was her.

She loved that house.

Okay.

And then over time, I realized I have the memories of the house.

I have the memories.

But my mom's with me.

She's not in the structure.

She's not there.

It's just.

It's just a structure.

The way you feel right now is I've been there, so I understand that.

And I want you to understand that no one is doing this.

With a light heart.

It's not done.

It's not done without you in mind.

Okay.

Life is different.

And the phrase life was different.

That that phrase has been traveling over and over in my head from the time he fell.

Life was different when he came home.

Life was different.

When my dad got ill, life was different.

When my dad passed away.

Our dad.

I don't want to be selfish.

Life was different there.

So that phrase is just is now part of life.

You know, we're changing.

The conditions were so bad, they've had leaks in the upstairs in the kitchen has been leaking.

There's been leaks all over this house.

That's how bad the water damage was.

So before we can get inside and make this house beautiful, we have the roof is doing what they need to do.

At this point, we had the roof ripped off already.

We're putting down the tar paper, the ice and water shield, and they have begun shingling the roof already.

So I would say within the next 4 or 5 hours, it's going to be safe and dry for them again.

We need to gut the entire home down to the studs to see if there's any water damage or structural damage.

If they're opening up a wall, we noticed that this home had no insulation, and that's going to be on top of all this as a one of the biggest priorities to get this house warm and safe again.

Okay.

John.

Is that built this concrete countertop like I've never seen before.

It is six inches of solid concrete with endless amounts of rebar.

We are going to have our hands full getting this removed.

So what we're going to do?

Sledge, hammer the hell out of this countertop and break it up?

In next.

Oh, okay.

Give it away.

The boy.

Easy does, easy does it.

Oh, boy.

Easy does it.

Yeah.

And that's the end of that chapter.

All right.

Five and five eights.. Five and five eights coming up I don't have my tape measure with me today.

So we are in Bruce's new room.

It falls within the footprints of his dad's old room.

We were very excited when we were able to make everything accessible to him, widening the doorways and giving him his own access to the bathroom.

We made the room a little bit smaller, simply because we don't want Bruce to stay any further down to him.

So we're doing is.

Now that the walls tie back, the protective wrap is on.

All Vin's got to do is put a bit of caulk in.

Then we put the window in.

Then we shim it up, make sure it's level, it's plumb.

But once everything's all good, all stations are go.

Just whack and some nails and we're done.

Today we're starting the building of the handicap accessible bathroom.

It's going to look great, this new bathroom.

When we get through this whole mess, he's going to be able to wheel in here, no problem.

Yeah.

Take a shower, wash his face, brush his teeth.

He'll be in shock when he comes home.

Oh, man.

I'm.

Yeah, I'm ecstatic for that.

Really?

Am.

There you go.

It.

That's the ceiling in the shower.

Bravo.

All right.

And then we'll move on to hit the walls next.

I just need 49.5.

And what this product is, is we we install it in the bathroom and it's tiled over.

And this prevents mold.

It's a moisture.

It's a moisture blocker.

Yep.

Golden.

This is the first step after we put it in the framing and the insulation.

This goes right smack over it.

Just don't forget that corner.

Whatever you do, come on.

It's here.

I. Okay.

All right, all right.

Okay.

And water will always find its way.

Most of the studs in the original bathroom rotted.

We never replaced most of the framework because of the water.

Mold was bound to happen just because John cannot maintain, you know, a bathroom like that.

Bruce certainly can't maintain it.

So this is making it much easier for them to also maintain what you guys see.

In the middle here is the linear drain, which the board is sloped already, so the water is going to be flowing to the drain, which is fantastic because when when Bruce is in the shower or any other disabled person is in a shower like this, you want a linear drain, because it keeps the water from coming out into the rest of the bathroom.

Yeah, this application really worked out great for for Bruce.

Yeah.

I mean, you can go from his bedroom.

He can roll right in here.

We were throwing back and forth, getting a secondary drain.

But because this is a barrier free shower, which means there is no curb, this will function perfectly for that.

This is this is going to be like a transformation thing.

We need to have the sheetrock installed throughout the entire home before we can begin the finishing work.

Once complete, we'll begin painting and installing the kitchen cabinets.

So when we took the garage down, John kept pointing out the wood, the wood, the wood.

This is in such great shape and I, him, and I are on the same page with a lot of that because I believe in reusing and repurposing.

So we took it down, we disassembled it and we brought it in and saved it to use again.

I've been working for days just hammering out nails, cleaning it up, but what we're planning on doing is using it in here, not just as a focal wall for for design purposes, but because that garage meant so much to them.

I want John and Bruce to be able to look at that wall and remember the times that they spent with their dad in the garage.

Right now we're doing a kitchen cabinet install.

Normally we would start with our upper cabinets, but in this case, our fabricator can only get in here today.

So we got our we got our base cabinets installed for him pretty quickly, so we can get those countertops fabricated so this family can get back in his home quicker.

23.5.

It was my.

Yeah.

Okay.

You got a pencil.

You know if it's not in my hair I don't have you.

Good.

I'll take Michael.

You got your pencil.

No I don't you took my pencil.

I'm like Vinnie I need the glass.

So we were able to open up this space for them.

And not only that we made his handicap accessible.

His kitchen.

So from Bruce wants to come in, he can build a wheel, his chair in here and be able to use the space, the countertop height for, especially the eating area is going to be where he can get under there with a wheelchair and be able to access all this, like me and you do every day.

Before he was not able to get into the kitchen or move around the kitchen.

So this is going to be a transformation.

Like like he's never seen before when he comes back in his home again.

I've always believed that the kitchen is the center of the home.

And everybody usually hangs out in here, so it's nice to be able to open it up.

I'm going to give you this really opened up the space.

Let the Light In gave Bruce a lot more accessibility to be able to roll into the kitchen and to eat on his own, and not have to rely on someone to help him.

We're going to be putting in sensor faucets in both the bathroom and the kitchen here, and all he has to do is put his hands under the faucets and they come on.

So he doesn't rely on people all the time.

He's able to have a little bit of independence within the hub, which is important, especially with the way the House is now.

He can really enjoy it It's it's a pretty good day when I bubble up.

So right now I am working on the, trim work in Bruce's room.

Bruce is a huge basketball fan.

Huge.

We had to kind of choose between the Lakers and the Knicks and I'm sorry, but New York, we're going to choose the Knicks.

And it kind of goes with the theme because Bruce's favorite color is also blue.

We have shelving that's going to be installed to put his little, train collection up there.

We might add a few trains and trucks ourselves to it, but we still want to make this as much as, Bruce's room as possible because this is his house.

So we're going to be building a ramp for Bruce.

And again, we couldn't do it in front of the house, and we didn't have enough clearance.

So we'll be doing in the back of the house.

This is going to be the only way Bruce gets in and out of the house.

So we're going to be from the back door here.

It's going to be coming down this path here.

It's going to be making the turn around the tree and coming to the landing and cement landing that we had fabricated for him.

So now this upgrade that he's going to have, he's going to have a portable aluminum ramp that's going to come down.

It's going to be safe and efficient for Bruce to get in and out of the house.

You're good.

Come on forward there.

You're not.

Don't worry.

And if you hit it, I'll paint it again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

What do you think?

That's the one you picked.

We did a lot of great things in this house, but the best thing is we made it much more handicapped accessible for Bruce.

We widen the doorways so he could just roll right in.

What do you think, Bruce?

What do you think?

Good versus room was one of our main challenges that needed to be done correctly.

The biggest challenge was making all the doorways handicap accessible.

So we had a lot of construction to be able to do that.

Okay, I'm going to show you something.

We found your CB radio.

Oh goody.

I wanted to make it like a collector's room because that's what Bruce is.

He has small collections of his things.

And the most important thing that we did for Bruce's room was able to make him a handicap bathroom, where he can roll into his room and roll right into the bathroom whenever he chooses.

And we all like about it.

Bruce says that finally, you can take a shower and I'll have to bathe you.

Thank you.

I could do it yourself.

You just roll right in.

Everything is centers in the house.

His left hand is where he has some mobility.

So everything is center.

He's just got to go right across the center line, and the water is going to go on, and it's set at the perfect temperature.

He can't get burned, and it's not going to be too cold for him.

So we then we do good.

You like to close the bathroom cover.

You got the hand sprayer, right?

You roll right in.

This is from the kitchen.

Yeah.

Come on.

That's where you guys are going to sit.

Me?

No.

It's perfect.

First thing we did was measure his wheelchair to see where his knee placement is.

So he's able to roll under things.

Now he has a table that is functional for him.

We took the wood from the garage and we put it in their eating area in their kitchen, so they can enjoy it.

They can sit.

They can look at it, it's beautiful to look at and it holds a lot of memories.

combined, brought in the elements that was from that garage.

Good that you and your family did so much work.

And do you remember that wall that was your garage?

We were able to bring it back in here for you guys.

are sitting here for lunch or dinner, that's your garage.

That's all your family's memories right there.

Good.

It was there, dad.

You know, it's it's wood, but I'm really all about what memories that would contained for them as a family.

I have all of your mom's string arm, but I. I loved this one.

I wanted something with a horse for you.

Yeah.

That's what.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

And I wanted something with a bird for you.

And I'm going to tell you why, okay?

I want to see you saw.

Thank you.

And I believe that you can, because I see Bruce thriving.

So if Bruce can thrive, you tell your brother, right?

If you're doing it, he can go for it, right?

He could do whatever his mind.

We're all connected.

Every last one of us.

Whether you like somebody or you don't like somebody, we're all connected.

Because when one person lights up, it lights up the other person, and it makes us stronger.

When we help other people, it makes us stronger.

So the biggest thing that has changed is the efforts that I do to project as much positivity as I can up to other people in any direction regards with their backgrounds.

That's the biggest lesson.

I can't do it by yourself and you have to project in order to stop the negative feelings.

I'm ready for the next step, you know, this is one step.

I have a huge one and a great launching pad to get other things done.

It's been over a year.

We've been here almost every day.

It's a beautiful home for John and Bruce.

You know, my biggest hope for for giant Bruce's that they're able to maintain this.

Just like the house was getting better and better every day.

He was as well as we were building it.

My biggest thing for him is him to be able to take care of this, enjoy it with him and Bruce and his family.

That's why we did it once they were.

They needed that in their family.

We're going to revisit him so many more times.

We're going to continue seeing Bruce.

So we're going to stay in contact with his family because they are part of our family now as well.