Contractors repairing 88-year-old’s home for free after damages from police chase crash

BATON ROUGE – Three high-paid, licensed construction contractors were hard at work Thursday, crawling down on their hands and knees to do back-breaking work — and they’re doing it all for free.

“It makes me feel good inside,” building contractor Corey White said.

White and the other contractors are installing a new floor and repairing thousands of dollars in damages done to the home of an 88-year-old Baton Rouge woman.

“It’s going to look like a home where you can lay your head, be comfortable,” building contractor Herbert Jones said. “She’s going to be happy. I know I would be, especially the outcome of how it looks now compared to what it was going to look like before.”

Arbella Robinson’s home was damaged on Friday by 30-year-old Alkeyven Ennis. He’s accused of posing as a cop and was wanted for armed robbery when he ran from the real police.

“I felt bad. I thought she really got hurt, but lucky she didn’t,”

Police say Robinson could have been killed. She was sitting in her living room right where the car hit her house.

“All they were talking about was did anybody get hurt or anything. I told them I was sitting in this chair eating,” Robinson said.

The contractors are also paying for a place for the elderly woman to stay because the crash left her home unlivable. In addition to redoing the living room, they’ve recruited an air-conditioning contractor to install central air in the home.

“We love our community, and we hope a lot more contractors will step up and help out the community, too, because we have a lot of elderly people who need our help,” White said.

On top of all their giving, these professional builders are actively losing money by postponing paid jobs to focus on fixing Robinson’s home for free.