Summary

The Hub is thrilled to feature The Restoration Team in the Spring 2025 issue of Partner Perspectives, a quarterly column that highlights the strategic, collaborative work done alongside one of CHEER’s 25 partner organizations.

Partner Type: Community Partner

Year of Establishment: 2017

Headquarters: Houston, TX

Mission: Home Repair and Disaster Recovery Supporting Communities Affected by Natural Hazards

The Hub’s community partners provide CHEER with a boots-on-the-ground perspective of its case study areas. They help describe the lived experiences, coping, and decision-making of community members to ensure that CHEER’s computational framework is based on research outcomes that are aligned with community-defined goals. This will support community members in making well-informed decisions to manage their risk. Read on to learn about The Restoration Team’s important work alongside the Hub.

A Word From the Director

Trevor Barnett (He/Him)

“The Restoration Team is grounded in the belief that housing is a right that everyone is entitled to. We focus on vulnerable homeowners so that their property will be an asset to them and their families, rather than a burden. Natural disasters are a common theme in the Gulf Coast region, and organizations need to go beyond structural repairs and recovery. We are committed to making homes and communities more resilient than before. By restoring a family’s home, we can help ensure that they can safely age, grow, and live in that home for generations to come.”

The Mission and Vision

The Restoration Team is a Houston-based home repair and disaster recovery organization dedicated to supporting communities impacted by hurricanes, floods, and other natural hazards. The nonprofit focuses on assisting vulnerable populations by providing home repairs and ensuring safe, sanitary, and secure housing. Their services include:

• Critical Home Repairs: Fixing roofs, walls, and structural damage caused by severe weather.
• Restoring Utilities: Ensuring homes are safe with repaired electrical systems, plumbing, and HVAC.
• Flood Damage Restoration: Removing debris, repairing water damage, and making homes livable again.

What began in 2017 as a collaboration among local churches in response to Hurricane Harvey has expanded into a network of partnerships with other community organizations and eight staff members who spend every day of the week coordinating volunteers, managing projects, and fundraising. Roughly 500 people volunteer for TRT annually. Since its inception in 2017, volunteers have spent more than 130,000 hours serving on and off worksites across the Houston area. Whether TRT is clearing debris, hanging drywall, or providing meals, the nonprofit is a leader in restoring community ties and bolstering resilience.

Working with the Hub 

The Restoration Team, which joined the Hub when it was first established in 2022, is working with CHEER to bring the voice of the communities impacted by repeated disasters to the forefront of finding equitable solutions. In 2024, the Hub awarded TRT a seed grant that has strengthened and elevated their work together. These funds are being used to collect data from residents across Houston and have allowed CHEER researchers to be in the field and on-site in one of the Hub’s three case study areas.

This close partnership is mutually beneficial for the Hub and TRT. The Restoration Team’s close ties with the Houston community serve as a bridge between community members and researchers. This working relationship has allowed the Hub to get a boots-on-the-ground perspective of local residents and capture the most challenging and pressing issues in one of its case study areas. In turn, TRT will be able to use this data to target the specific needs of their community and, thus, more effectively serve local residents.

Looking Forward

The Restoration Team will continue to work alongside the Hub CHEER households thrust, which is preparing to gather data from their clients across the Houston area over the summer and fall. This survey will focus on the services that TRT clients have needed and gather data about the specific storms that have impacted them. It will also include questions about how long it took for clients to receive repairs and whether they sought assistance from FEMA or SBA loans. Additionally, the survey will capture if clients have home remediation needs, such as mold remediation, tree removal, roof repairs, insulation, or HVAC issues. It will also allow TRT to better understand how their work has impacted those they have already served and their ongoing needs. Ultimately, this research will help both the CHEER Hub and The Restoration Team understand the ongoing needs of residents in the Houston area and the outstanding needs they have following disaster events.

Mr. Barnett hopes to use this experience to learn best practices from the Hub’s research and inform a broader audience about the needs and struggles coastal communities face.

Getting Involved

Whether you can donate time, money, materials, or skilled labor, the Restoration Team is always looking for volunteers and resources to continue their work. Visit their Engagement page for more information.

To learn more about The Restoration Team, visit their website. Subscribe to their e-newsletter or follow their LinkedIn page for the latest updates. More information on CHEER’s collaborations can be found on the Hub’s Partners page.