Action saves home

This is the story of agenerous family andan eccentric junk collector who nearly lost everything.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- For years, James Fusco -- Jimmy to most people -- would approach demolition sites like the ones Bill Pizzuto and his company worked on around town.
"Can I have this piece of glass? Can I have that piece of metal?" the diminutive Fusco would ask.
The answer usually was yes, and Fusco was dismissed as just another garbage picker.
Little did either man know what role that passing relationship would turn into.
"What are you going to do? He just touched my heart," Pizzuto would say later.
Pizzuto, who runs William Pizzuto and Co. with his daughter Jeannette, got a contract starting Feb. 25 to knock down four decrepit Youngstown houses.
The properties were behind Oakhill Renaissance Place, the old Forum Health Southside Medical Center building. Oakhill Renaissance will build a new park there.
The properties at Ridge Avenue and Werner Street were like hundreds of others in the city. Windows broken or boarded, leaking roofs, the houses and yards filled with junk. The Pizzutos had handled such projects before.
Where he lived: But what they couldn't tell from the outside of the homes was that Jimmy Fusco, 84, slept inside them.
Fusco lived in the houses -- squatted more or less -- for the past 32 years since the house he lived in burned down.
The owner let him stay at the Ridge properties rent-free just to keep somebody around so the siding wasn't stripped. But there were barely any utilities. He had a portable kerosene heater. There wasn't any running water. An extension cord strung from one house to another provided electricity to run a refrigerator.
Fusco also followed his nature while living there. As he had for nearly 80 years, the self-described junkman collected everything. He kept small pieces of discarded metal to old trucks, broken furniture to linens.
Little more than a narrow path was left through the last of the Ridge houses he lived in because there was so much junk, piled floor to ceiling.
"I was born in the junk. I've lived in junk my whole life," Fusco said.
But now the property was sold, Jimmy had to leave and the Pizzutos had to deal with Fusco and his "belongings" before starting the job.
"We didn't account for this. Then Jimmy grew on us," Jeannette Pizzuto said.
She and her father turned Fusco's case over to the many social agencies that provide help for homeless and elderly people.
What he wanted: But Fusco wouldn't go into public housing because he couldn't keep his two best pals, a canine collie mix that answers to Roger and an orange cat named Goldie. He's had them for 12 years.
Fusco also refused to part with much of his tons of junk. He told the Pizzutos he would rather live under the Market Street bridge than give up his animals or his junk.
He was about to do just that.
The Pizzutos, however, didn't have the heart to let Fusco simply take refuge under a bridge.
"You can't do that to Jimmy," Jeannette said. "He's a lovable kind of guy. I think he's just so damn cute."
Then, the Pizzutos discovered Fusco owned a house he hadn't told them about, not too far away on Franklin Street.
The city had condemned the property, however. Fusco had filled that house and yard with junk, too, and there hadn't been any maintenance in many years.
That eyesore also appeared to be Fusco's last opportunity to live with a roof over his head. The Pizzutos wouldn't let that chance slip away.
They made a deal with the city: You take the house off the condemned list and we'll clean it up and make it livable for Fusco, paid for out of our own pocket.
"What are you going to do? He wouldn't have survived downtown without his stuff. He just touched my heart," Bill Pizzuto said.
The deal was one that Mike Damiano, the city's demolition director, couldn't turn down.
Here was situation: Damiano and many other city officials have been after Fusco for years. Fusco has been in and out of city court on housing and illegal dumping citations, from tires to trash, for at least a decade, Damiano said.
But it's hard prosecuting a frail old man who couldn't pay a fine anyway, Damiano said. He and most other city officials would prefer the messes just get cleaned up.
"You don't know what to do," Damiano said.
When the chance came to see the Ridge Avenue properties leveled and another condemned property revived, Damiano had to say yes.
"If Bill didn't do that, Jimmy probably wouldn't have a place to live," Damiano said. "Thankfully, this one worked out. I just hope it continues to work out well."
Last week, the Ridge Avenue homes were torn down.
Fusco's future is now on Franklin Street.
Many in the Pizzuto family helped clean out the house. They pulled out 10,000 pounds of junk, though the yard remains a mess.
With the house cleared, renovations were next. New paint went up on the walls, carpet was put down on the floors. Oakhill Reinsurance donated furniture. Catholic Charities and other groups are helping get the utilities turned on.
Ongoing project: Like parents to a small child, the Pizzutos needle Fusco endlessly about clearing the junk from his new yard and keeping the house and the rest of the property clean, like the city is demanding.
Fusco says he will, but the Pizzutos are skeptical at best. A semitrailer where they let Fusco pile the Ridge Avenue junk he just had to save before the demolition remains on the demolition site. Nobody knows what will happen to that stuff.
Jeannette Pizzuto said she and her family can't -- and won't -- toss Fusco aside now.
"This one we just couldn't leave alone," she said. "This will be an ongoing project."
Fusco is plenty thankful.
"If it weren't for them, where would I be? There's no way I could ever pay 'em. The only way I could pay them is with the Lord's prayers," he said, with tears in his eyes. "I never expected it. I love [them] from the bottom of my heart."
rgsmith@vindy.com