Tag Tagudin at 81 has a sore back and diabetes, but that doesn’t stop him from helping senior citizens who are at risk of eviction from low-income housing because they couldn’t pass health inspections.

“I just couldn’t see old people being evicted — where they going to go?” he said.

At first Tagudin was just driving his wife to clean apartments for the Catholic Church’s Kupuna Kokua Ministry for seniors, but he ended up pitching in and becoming the expert on bathrooms. After five years of volunteering, he has earned the title “king of thrones” because of his surefire cleaning methods, said his wife, Lina Tagudin, giggling.

Tag Tagudin once exclaimed, “I had no idea I would meet Jesus going into someone’s place and scrubbing their toilet!” recalled Iwie Tamashiro, co-founder of Kupuna Kokua in 2012. The group is under the Catholic diocese’s Office for Social Ministry, operated in partnership with the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), a program of the city’s Elderly Affairs Division. Most of the volunteers are retirees ages 55 and over.

Tamashiro and Yolanda Morreira have helped 15 to 20 seniors in four affordable-housing complexes in Wahiawa pass health inspections over the years. If the seniors’ apartments aren’t clean enough — including under refrigerators and behind stoves— they could be evicted and probably end up on the streets, Tamashiro said. “My heart was breaking” upon learning seniors were among the largest growing population of homeless, she said, and both thought the cleaning service might prevent that.

She and Morreira asked friends at their parishes to help them and got more than 30 volunteers from Our Lady of Sorrows and St. John the Apostle Evangelist Catholic churches in Wahiawa and Mililani, respectively.

Morreira said that after several sessions “our seniors and volunteers really come very close — they become our family.”

“All our volunteers have shared that they would go in to clean, and the senior would walk along with them and talk story” because many are lonely, living by themselves. They often make lunch or bake a cake for the volunteers, or give them other gifts. “In their own little way, they try to thank us,” Tamashiro added.

Morreira said the longest-serving team of four people belongs to her church, Our Lady of Sorrows, which includes the Tagudins, Cindy Yen and Tony Espiritu. Yen, the only one who still works full time, takes a vacation day to clean because she’s too busy on the weekends. She joined the team at about the same time her parents died because “I felt that there was more that I could have done to help them, but when you’re working full time and have your own family, it’s kinda hard. So this is my way of paying tribute to them.”

One of their favorite clients is Eddie Lagasca, who tries to clean his apartment but said it’s hard to do from a wheelchair. Morreira said the team does extra things, like cleaning inside the refrigerator, because he’s a fun presence. They stay for a half-hour afterward to keep him company.

Tag Tagudin said, “We all felt so close to him. Before, (we came) every three months just so he could pass inspection. But we took it upon ourselves and said let’s come once a month and give this guy a helping hand.”

“If their apartment is not clean, they have a chance of being evicted,” Tagudin said. “I wouldn’t want to be in that predicament. … I’m a kupuna myself, but as long as I can move, that’s the main thing.

“I have several issues,” he said, rubbing his back, “but that goes away once you start doing work. It’s not really hard as long as all four of us are pitching in.”

Morreira said the volunteers are picky about the cleaning products they use, which the churches pay for. Many have special formulas. But they’d also like a magic solution for deteriorating bones and muscles, said Morreira, who is 70. “We’re getting old. Some of our clients are much younger than us!”