Battling cancer & bills, KC couple was ‘barely making ends meet.’ Local company stepped in

A Kansas City couple recently found themselves facing a huge fight on several fronts, confronted with medical bills and home repair bills while both were battling cancer. It was a dire situation, at least until a roofing company and another local organization came to their rescue.

Mike and Becky Nichols were both undergoing chemotherapy for their cancer when they were then also faced with the sudden loss of their homeowners insurance after making a claim for needed roof repairs. It put the couple under an enormous financial stain, even while they contended with the burdens of cancer.

Becky Nichols has been battling pancreatic cancer for two years.

“She’s been through feeding tubes and, she was on a feeding tube for six months and I was trying to care for her,” her husband Mike Nichols told The Star.

While caring for his wife, Mike Nichols found himself having some gastrointestinal problems and went to the doctor for some scans. After those scans, he received unexpected news of his own, finding out he had kidney cancer.

“It was luckily stage one, whereas my wife’s pancreatic cancer was stage three, an extremely aggressive cancer,” Mike Nichols said. “So I had cancer, and I was trying to take care of my wife with cancer.”

Mike Nichols eventually had surgery, having one of his kidneys and the lymph nodes around it removed. His wife Becky Nichols had to get part of her pancreas removed.

“The last two years have been extremely intense,” Mike Nichols said of their medical journey.

Losing homeowners insurance

Prior to getting sick, the Nichols already needed a new roof for their home. Their insurance company gave them $5000 to get it fixed, but that wasn’t enough.

As their cancer treatments consumed most of their time, their roof repairs got put on the back burner.

But after hail and windstorms swept through their neighborhood earlier this spring, damaging homes up and down their street, the Nichols called their insurance.

Due to the storms, Apex Roofing and Restoration, a family-owned and operated roofing company, were going door to door in their neighborhood, offering free estimates. The company did an estimate of their roof damage, and told the couple that the roof repairs would cost $16,000, leaving the Nichols thousands of dollars short.

“We still didn’t have enough money to get everything fixed and we were $6,000 short of what we would need to get our roof to $16,000,” Nichols said.

As they were figuring out how to make ends meet, the Nichols contacted Healthy Homes, a program operated by the Community Action Agency of Greater Kansas City, that aims to identify, reduce, and eliminate safety hazards in homes that affect the health and well-being of residents, to figure out a way to finance the new roof.

While the Nichols were in contact with that organization, their insurance settled with the couple. But later, they received a letter in the mail saying that after 45 years with their insurance company, they were no longer eligible for their homeowners insurance due to other claims.

That’s when Healthy Homes told them they’d come up with another $6,000 needed for the roof.

‘Serving a family in need’

Once Apex started to replace the roof, the Nichols were in for another surprise. The roofing company found three roofs on the home, one on top of each another.

“The biggest surprise of all was that underneath that, all roofs, is on top of what they call decking, which is these big plywood boards that go over your entire roof that cover it, and then the shingles go on top of that, well, our house had no decking,” Nichols said.

That discovery further upped the cost of repairs.

“They came back and said, you’re gonna need another $10,000. And I said, we don’t have we barely were able to come up with the $16,000 of the original bid,” Nichols said.

Nichols reached out to Apex and spoke with their administrative assistant, Taylor Orr, about the issue, trying to see if they could get the price down. The company was willing to work with them, but their initial offer of help still wasn’t enough, according to Nichols.

“We don’t have any rich relatives, we don’t have any friends who will come up with this for us. We don’t have anywhere to turn, we can’t do this, and Taylor said, ‘Okay, let me see what I can do,’” Nichols said.

“What I found out later is that she had become an advocate for us constantly working this up the chain and she finally came back and said, ‘Mike, we’re going to do your roof for you for no money,’” Nichols said.

Nichols said that he was “blown out of the waters” when he received the good news.

“She even sent me a new contract that said... we are doing this pro bono for you, there will be no expenses out of pocket,” Nichols said, noting that Apex agreed to cover not only the known costs, but also any additional expenses.

The company quickly got to work.

“From tear off to rebuild, it took us, like, 48 hours, maybe 72. And that’s a fast turnaround,” said Todd Speciale, chief sales officer for Apex Roofing and Restoration. “We were super committed because we knew the extremities that this particular loving and and grateful family was going through.”

Speciale told The Star that Apex is not only committed to fixing roofs, but also to their dedication to community engagement in Kansas City.

“This cost us money, and the money was well spent, and it’s about serving a family in need, and that’s who we are,” Speciale said.

“We just couldn’t be happier,” Nichols said.