ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – One Roanoke non-profit is working to supply housing to people in need.
For more than 10 years, Restoration Housing has worked to revamp historic homes – giving people in difficult positions a place to live. To date, Restoration Housing said it’s worked on nine homes. Now, it’s working on its 10th.
“It’s not just a halfway deal, they completely restore it. Our home looks like a mansion. They don’t only restore the housing, the people that they place in there, it restores,” said Paulickia and Mark Cooper.
Paulickia and Mark are a married couple living in the Belmont neighborhood, where the tenth Restoration Housing project is taking place. The couple didn’t have a place to live for six months in 2023, before moving into one of the non-profit’s restored homes later that year.
“Thanks for this piece of heaven, it’s a piece of heaven. Being able to get your mental health in order is peaceful,” Mark Cooper said.
They were able to completely turn their life around after moving into the home and are beyond thankful for the work the non-profit does to bring the homeless population down in the city. They said having a roof over their heads has brought peace of mind, and they’re hopeful the new house can benefit someone else who’s struggling.
“It’s helped us a great bit. If it wasn’t for that we’d still be homeless, and I think that them restoring this next house in the community will help a great bit. There’s still people out here that need shelter and it’s going to change their lives because it changed our lives,” Paulickia Cooper said.
Restoration Housing Executive Director Isabel Thornton is looking forward to the fifth Belmont home to be complete next spring and once complete, two apartment units will be available for Permanent Supportive Housing for people coming out of homelessness. She said by collaborating with Commonwealth Catholic Charities, future tenants will have access to wraparound support services that help them build a strong foundation for the future.
“We don’t like to see these older homes fall apart. We don’t like to see neighborhoods that are lacking investment. We just want to reinvest in them. So that’s sort of the biggest driver behind all of this work, is wanting to see Roanoke kind of come back to life,” Thornton said.
The non-profit is already working on purchasing its next home in the same neighborhood, construction for that home is expected to begin towards the end of 2026.
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Published by WDBJ7 on November 12, 2025 by Kaira Willis.
