Fixes keep seniors in homes
CHOICES • Industry focuses on housing suitable for aging population
JIM CLARK / PORTLAND TRIBUNE
Homeowner Dave Heinlein (left) chats with contractor Brian Bartholomew in the bathroom Bartholomew remodeled to make it more accessible for Heinlein, 58, as he ages.
When Dave Heinlein’s knees started failing, he knew it was time to move out of his two-story house with upstairs bedrooms.
“It got to the point where the pain was so bad, I could barely make it up and down the stairs. I was only going up the stairs once at night to go bed, and only coming down once in the morning,” said Heinlein who, at 58, describes himself as an “aging baby boomer.”
So last year Heinlein sold his two-story house in the Bethany area of WashingtonCounty and bought a one-story home on a flat lot a short distance away. Then he set about making sure he could stay in the house, even when he can no longer walk.
Helping Heinlein is In Your Home, a local remodeling firm specializing in “aging in place,” the concept of allowing people to continue living in their homes as they grow old or become disabled.
The company advised Heinlein to make a few basic fixes in the large bathroom off the bedroom. They included removing the walls around the set-back toilet, enlarging the door into the shower and installing heavy-duty grab bars in both locations.
After the company finished the work, Heinlein was thrilled with the results.
“Now I can live in this house for the rest of my life. Even if I have to bring someone in to help me get around, there’s plenty of room for them to help me get to the toilet and in and out of the shower,” he said.
In Your Home partner Brian Bartholomew said Heinlein is typical of the company’s growing list of clients.
“A lot of what we recommend and do is just common sense, but until you begin to have problems getting around, you just don’t think about it,” he said.
According to Bartholomew, other common renovations include adding wheelchair ramps to aid mobility, raising appliances to reduce stooping, and increasing lighting to compensate for failing eyesight.
In Your Home is just one company tapping into the growing field of helping the country’s aging population live independently.
The 55-plus population in the United States is expected to hit 85 million by 2014, with half of all households headed by someone 55 or older.
AARP reports that 90 percent of seniors want to stay in their own homes as long as possible — including 82 percent who want to stay there even if they need day-to-day assistance or ongoing health care — after retirement.
The National Association of Home Builders predicts that aging-in-place remodeling already is a $20 billion- to $25-billion-a-year business, about 10 percent of the total home improvement market.
The trend also is influencing home sales. Heinlein said single-story homes are selling so fast that it took him months to find one that did not already have at least one offer on it.
More developers are offering new homes with master bedrooms and baths on the first floors. Some are gearing entire subdivisions toward the aging baby boomer market. One is the Jones Corner development in Vancouver, Wash., which was built by Capstone Homes. All of the homes have master bedrooms on the ground floor.
Such work is supported by academic institutions and think tanks studying the aging trends.
They include the Andrus Gerontology Center at the University of Southern California and the National Home Modification Action Coalition, which argues that homes should be designed to accommodate all ages, from children to seniors with mobility problems. This concept is called “universal design” or “design for all.”
Local custom-home builder Margie Tucker sees a growing market for homes with two bedroom-and-bath suites on the first floor.
Several potential customers have requested such homes in recent years. Although Tucker has yet to build any, she is drafting model designs for them.
“More and more baby boomers are caring for their aging parents. Both the parents and their children have trouble with stairs, so it’s really a help if they can do everything on the first floor,” said Tucker, the owner of Crown Construction, which is based in Cornelius.
However, Tucker said, state, regional and local land-use policies work against such homes. Building two master bedrooms on the first floor takes up more space than putting them on the second floor.
But land use planners are pushing for higher housing densities to save farm and forest lands. The result is multistory homes on smaller lots.
“I’m having a hard time even finding large enough lots to build these kinds of homes,” Tucker said.
Mary Kyle McCurdy, a staff attorney with the land-use planning watchdog group 1000 Friends of Oregon, said the marketplace ultimately determines lot sizes, however. She also believes that the kind of home Tucker wants to build is only one way of aging in place.
“People are already building additional rooms on their homes for their parents. There are also a large number of existing single-floor homes that can be remodeled to achieve the same purpose,” she said.
jimredden@portlandtribune.com