Mobility impairments can makes steps difficult and dangerous. But renovating a home can be extremely expensive and take a long time. Many find themselves suddenly faced with trying to adapt a home after a disabling event. It can be hard to figure out how to do that on a budget.
One caregiver talked to me about the stress she felt about her husband coming home from the hospital and how it would be difficult to navigate a house that had not been designed accessibly. “When he was first in the hospital with the cardiac arrest and he was coming home, he wasn’t able to walk. He was still using a walker and a wheelchair,” she told me. And of course, like almost every house in the US, steps were an issue. “We had two steps coming in from the garage…I was just beside myself wondering how is he going to maneuver around and his best friend and other buddies…built this platform thing. They were very meticulous about how high it needed to be, knowing he’s going to use a walker instead of doing a ramp, that he was going to have to use extra strength. They built it to where he could step up, have enough room to walk, step up again. On both parts that was helping him and then helping me so I didn’t have to worry about him getting in and out of the house.”