As director of housing for Urban Homeworks, a nonprofit that renovates foreclosed houses and rents or sells them to low-income residents, Dan Hunt has seen a good share of people in trouble.

Some have spotty job and rental histories. Many are single parents. Some have hit the bottom because of bad luck, others through bad choices. All come to him because they need a hand at a particular time in their lives.

"We definitely take chances on people who can't get rental units," Hunt said. "I got pretty good at making a distinction between needs and wants -- I have to determine whether someone truly needed something, or just wanted it."

When he placed client Sherry Hanson in one of the agency's rehabbed homes more than three years ago, Hunt knew that she had kidney problems that required dialysis three times a week, a treatment that forced her out of work and made it difficult to care for her kids.

"She is just a phenomenal person," Hunt said. "She has six kids, two of whom she basically adopted from a neighbor who couldn't take care of them. She's been very generous with her own time in the years I've known her."

Urban Homeworks' mission is to rehabilitate properties while also helping rehab communities and people. They buy distressed homes, usually duplexes or small multi-unit buildings, in poor neighborhoods such as north Minneapolis. They use volunteers to do the construction work, while training people who already live in the community in building trades. Often, those trainees eventually become contractors who get paid to rehab future homes.

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Dan Hunt, right, of Urban Homeworks worked to rehab a Minneapolis home with volunteer Dave Young in 2003. The nonprofit often “takes chances on people” it helps, Hunt says.

Part of that mission is to link their clients with young Christians, who agree to live in one part of a duplex and offer support for their neighbor and community.

"Most of them are from the suburbs or rural areas, so they get a great education on what it's like to live in a poor, urban neighborhood," Hunt said. "We don't mandate relationships [between students and clients], but there's an exchange we'd like to see happen where both would learn something."

When Hanson's condition continued to worsen, several of the women living in the same duplex got tested for a transplant. One of them matched Hanson, and initially agreed to donate a kidney. But then the volunteer decided to do missionary work overseas, and was discouraged from going through with it.

"Sherry was really hopeful that it would be something that would really change her quality of life," Hunt said. "It really burst her bubble."

Hunt and his wife, Erica, (she directs after-school programs) are both dedicated to social services and giving back through their church and community. They purposely moved to St. Paul's Frogtown area to live in a poor, diverse neighborhood. He thought about the job that makes him decide between clients' needs and wants.

"Sherry clearly had a need, and maybe I was in a position to meet it," he said.

It didn't take long for Hunt to call Hanson with an important question:

"I said, 'If I'm a match, can I give you my kidney?'"

Hanson was guarded but agreed to let Hunt be tested. "Erica was totally supportive," even though the couple have three young children.

As it turned out, Hunt was a match, and Tuesday at Hennepin County Medical Center's transplant center he gave the biggest gift he could think of to someone he knew only through his work.

"This decision I made very easily," Hunt a few days ago. "This may allow Sherry to go back to dreams she had five years ago. No matter how it turns out, I will have no regrets. I don't live my life by 'what-ifs.'"

Hanson was nervous but hopeful last week. "When he offered his kidney I said, 'For real?'"

Late Tuesday, Hunt and Hanson were in recovery and doing well, according to Erica Hunt.

"I just don't know what to say," Hanson said. "I've never met anybody like him in my life."

jtevlin@startribune.com • 612-673-1702