Rainbow Rehab

Rainbow Rehab, Inc. was founded in 1989 by Ann Hingst out of her love for houses and desire to make homes available to people who could not afford to buy homes on the open market. Inspired by the model of Habitat for Humanity, she decided to focus on rehabilitation of houses, since the local Habitat only builds new homes. By "recycling" homes and turning something unattractive and unusable, into something beautiful and useful, she hoped to add to the affordable housing stock in Tallahassee. Rainbow Rehab acquired their first house when a Habitat supervisor suggested they buy the house next door to a Habitat house being built, so as to improve the whole neighborhood. Habitat went on to build several more houses on the street. Rainbow house #2 was moved from the site of the new Target Store on Apalachee Pkwy to a lot in the same neighborhood. The neighborhood was so improved by the efforts of Habitat and Rainbow Rehab that the City built a park for the residents. A contractor who was going to demolish the house to put up student apartments donated House #3. Rainbow rescued the house and moved it across town to a lot donated by someone who had heard about what Rainbow was doing. A dentist who was having trouble renting his house because it was in an area plagued by drugs donated House #4. After the 4th house was finished, Ann went back to school to learn computer-assisted drafting and design. Emory Hingst, Ann's husband and then pastor at St Stephen Lutheran Church, took over the helm of the organization and oversaw the renovation of another house in the Bond community. From 1998-2003 the organization was dormant while Ann & Emory pursued other projects. In 2003, Rainbow was reactivated with the appointment of a new Board of Directors. Since 2003, Rainbow has been under the leadership, respectively, of Paul Shepherd and Buddy Holshouser. In 2006, Rainbow expanded its scope by partnering with the City of Tallahassee in making emergency repairs and accessibility improvements to qualified, owner occupied homes. Since it's founding, Rainbow has successfully rehabilitated and sold eight (8) homes.