Accessibility Is Home podcast
Welcome to AI Home podcast, the first exclusive podcast on real estate resources and independent living strategies for the disability community. Why? Because Accessibility Is Home. Brought to you by Angela Fox, blogger, and author of “My blue front door”. Ms. Fox will be interviewing Realtors and home improvement contractors who are both disability friendly and others who may have a lot more to learn. Ms. Fox will also provide takeaways for anyone wanting to be a homeowner with a disability.
Accessibility Is Home podcast
Redefining Real Estate for Inclusivity
Can real estate truly revolutionize accessibility and independence for all? We invite you to listen to our inspiring conversation with Gretchen Kingma and Tiffany Dill, founders of Empowered Homes and Custom Joy. These remarkable occupational therapists turned entrepreneurs share their unique journeys from traditional therapy roles to becoming pioneers in accessible housing solutions. Hear how Gretchen, motivated by high rehospitalization rates among her patients, transitioned into real estate, and how Tiffany's passion for home design led to the founding of Custom Joy. They also discuss the misconceptions around ADA standards in residential settings and emphasize the Universal Design Ready (UDR) criteria with its real-world applications in real estate.
Together, they provide invaluable insights into integrating healthcare perspectives into real estate to enhance accessibility and independence.
Learn about the challenges realtors face when advising clients with disabilities and explore strategies to attract investors to accessible housing projects, showcasing design elements that boost functionality and safety. We highlight the profound impact of proactive planning and universal design in creating inclusive living spaces, particularly for families coping with serious health issues. Through personal stories and expert advice, we reveal how these designs enhance family togetherness and address the challenges of assisted living facilities. By providing collective experiences and resources, we strive to improve accessibility and raise the standard for disability-inclusive housing, ensuring a more accommodating environment for everyone.
Cush Pocket, a proud sponsor, is a disabled owned company that sells wheelchair bags. Get $1 off by using code Angela Fox
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Thank you everybody. Again, my name is Angela Fox and I am standing in my handicapped bathroom because at Horizontal Houses we know that accessibility to a home is more than just the bathroom. So today I have some fabulous ladies that are into the real estate accessibility business. I have Gretchen and Tiffany today. Gretchen, would you like to say hi and introduce Tiffany as well?
Speaker 2:Yes, hello, thanks so much for having us. I am Gretchen Kingma and we, just to confuse, you are representing two businesses that work together as sister companies, so it's so exciting you get two for the price of one. I am an occupational therapist and founder of Empowered Homes, which is a real estate company that is powered by Keller Williams Realty St Louis, and I'll let Tiffany introduce herself and our other business, and I am Tiffany Dill, like Dill Pickle, and I am an occupational therapist as well, and I handle the design and construction side for Custom Joy, which is the sister company to Empowered Homes.
Speaker 3:So we really primarily focus on accessibility, improving the accessibility of homes, and focusing on universal design so that we can cater to the masses.
Speaker 1:That sounds like a wonderful. I love just a whole sisterhood Women helping women. It's a whole sisterhood Women helping women. And for those of you who may be joining us by YouTube, I forgot to describe myself. I am a white woman with very long brown hair, with headphones and a really bright blue jacket and a dress that is light blue as well, with the decorations. Gretchen, would you like to describe yourself?
Speaker 2:Yes, I am also a white woman with glasses, so a trend Brown hair that is pulled back in a ponytail, a lavender collared shirt and big glasses.
Speaker 3:And Tiffany. I am not wearing glasses. However, I am wearing hearing aids, so I guess that can count. And I have brown hair pulled back in a bun and I'm wearing a necklace and I have on a black shirt and have blue eyes, and I'm also a white female.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Thank you, ladies. I appreciate that, and we can include those who may be listening to our YouTube channel as well, who are visually impaired. You both quickly described your businesses, but, gretchen, why don't you go into yours first and how you work with Tiffany after Tiffany kind of tells us a little bit about the business in more detail?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we just finished up a TheraPreneur Mastermind where we meet with other occupational, physical and speech therapists. So I just told this story, which is fun to tell twice in a day. But background is in, like I said, occupational therapy, where I treated mainly adults and seniors, aging adults and adults in inpatient rehab after a major life change.
Speaker 2:And in the inpatient rehab and the senior living community that I worked in, my primary role was the home assessment therapist, along with just treating patients regularly under Medicare A and B. And in that role it blew my mind no matter how independent we got the patient before they discharged home that the percentage of people that would come back to the therapy department, whether it was a Med B or had rehospitalization under Medicare A. It just blew my mind. And so I meditated a lot on that and thought, gosh, it's probably because the environment isn't changing. It doesn't matter how great we perform in this box of a therapy gym when they're going back home, home isn't changing.
Speaker 2:So when I was going on maternity leave seven years ago, I looked down to hand over my OT caseload to the OT that was the occupational therapist that was taking over for me and I realized I had just over a hundred patients and I was in charge of four CODAs certified occupational therapy assistants and that blew my mind and it made me realize I cannot be anything for any of these people because I'm stretched so thin. All I am is an evaluator and a paper pusher. Frankly, I didn't get to treat the people that I loved and cared for so deeply so when I left, told the manager see you in 12 weeks after I have this first baby. And then I got home and told my husband never going back there and we have 12 weeks to figure it out. And so home was just the theme that kept coming back when I was thinking about what wasn't working for the majority of my patients.
Speaker 2:And that's how I got into real estate. I thought sounds really bad because we're sitting in a real estate office. It's a low level of entry, but if we could bring health care background to the housing space we could really change the way people buy and sell and look at their real estate investments. So that's how I get into real estate.
Speaker 1:That sounds like a whole lot. What a wonderful journey.
Speaker 3:And you don't forget repeat visitors?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of. What do we call them? Repeat offenders?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we would call them repeat offenders in the hospital.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And it's fabulous you're able to do that and juggle motherhood. I always, I'm always, excited to see that. Thank you for that journey and you getting involved in real estate. What about you, Tiffany?
Speaker 3:So I am occupational therapist as well and I worked in pediatrics and rehab, so I saw a lot of the similar things that Gretchen saw, but I saw a lot from the pediatric side of things as well. But it all started with me Like I grew up going to homeramas in Louisville, kentucky, every year and I loved it so much, loved home design, loved drawing houses and sketching out plans and that sort of thing. But my husband and I were looking for a home in St Louis and it was very hard to find a home that had a primary level bedroom and everything on the main floor. Everything was like two stories around here. And then we started to be a little bit more flexible. We're like, oh, who cares, we'll just stay upstairs in the bedroom. But then we realized when our family comes over to visit and we got grandparents and aging parents and we also have family members with disabilities they're not going to be able to get in our house. So we decided to build a house from scratch, worked with an architect, did everything that we wanted to do At least we thought we would but we do have zero step entry in the back. We added a ramp because it's on a hill. So we.
Speaker 3:We basically did a lot of things that I didn't realize was universal design at the time. I was just doing it out of what we knew as occupational therapists and what we knew about our families and people who wanted to come to visit in our homes. We wanted to welcome everyone that would come in and entertain and that sort of thing. So we did that. And then that's when I realized my husband said you need to go into home design with occupational therapy. And I was like I don't even know if that's a thing. That sounds crazy.
Speaker 3:So I went to the Universal Design Summit here in St Louis put on by the Starkloff Disability Institute, and ran into another OT in Denver, colorado, who introduced me what she was doing OT with home designs and I was like, wait, that is possible. So then I decided to go into that and then we met through another OT in Denver and then we connected via social media and we went on a blind date and we hit it off and when we met about seven years ago we met and then we ended up working together, side by side along the way and all along I knew that we were going to work together someday and that we would be a power duo because of what we could provide end-to-end solution with real estate and construction. So we merged, or I transferred all my services over from Blue Day to design to Custom Joy and I have been so happy about that transition and I don't regret any bit of that at all. So we're doing pretty well with what we're doing at Custom Joy and being a women-owned design build construction company, which is awesome, and we pay attention to details, we're not afraid to ask questions, we don't take no for an answer and we get nerdy and nitty-gritty to the details. So, yeah, I think that's where we got Custom Joy through all of that.
Speaker 3:Did I miss anything?
Speaker 1:No, you nailed it. Oh, that's fabulous, tiffany. So I heard design and I also heard construction. So do you build for your company?
Speaker 3:which is Custom Joy. Is that correct? Is that the name of your company? Yes, Custom Joy. So the services that we offer conceptual design plans which we put together basically like a recipe book to hand off to contractors. If a client already has a contractor that they want to work with on any kitchen and bath remodels, we do sketch out floor plans for them and do some rendering for them. It's not high level but it's pretty basic to what they need whenever they need to submit something to the city for construction and remodeling. And we do consulting for new construction projects. We have done that as well as project management. So we do project management mainly for, like investors, that we work with investors and really trying to educate and advocate for universal design and creating more functional spaces to elevate joy in the home for investors, whether it's short-term rentals, long-term rentals, that sort of thing I failed to mention.
Speaker 3:Another reason why we merged to start Custom Joy is because we got left off the table. We handed off the client over to a contractor who was. We already did all of the legwork at the beginning. We did some property searching, walking properties and talking about just really working with them on providing that conceptual design to get them started and we were too many cooks at the table so we got shoot off the table and no Starbucks gift card, nothing. But we still work with the contractor, we're still professional, we're going to still refer because we know that he does really good work. But it is just a sad that when we get thrown off the table, we like to continue to work with our clients and know that things are being followed through, and so when we started Custom Joy now we have control of our clients and we advocate for them throughout the whole process- County.
Speaker 1:They passed a county law this past September that in 2026, half of all their new design, newly built homes have to be universal and inclusive housing and that's for the private sector, not low income housing, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am super excited and so I'm trying to work with law realtors to get them. Most of them don't know that law was passed or there's confusion at the entire state and things. But the reason I bring it to attention is this individual shared with me that as a realtor that he can't necessarily advise about what broker to use the banking and things like that, and he had a particular client that had a learning disability and he was concerned about I want to make sure she could, you know she could follow along with the whole financial aspect and not be taken advantage. So his solution was I know this one particular brokerage that I've worked for a really long time building those professional relationships and everything. It still was one of those things that stuck of. I don't know how much I can really advocate for this person as a real state agent and luckily state of Maryland there is a state-specific home ownership loan program.
Speaker 1:And yeah, and the reason I know about that is you read my book, my blue front door. I talk about my journey. That's how I got started. So I started this journey. But I found that program and it was specific.
Speaker 1:And the reason why it's important is, um, they go out and get the bank, so you don't have a choice who you're necessarily working with, and it's why they do this, because they can't the interest rate.
Speaker 1:So as long yeah, so as long as you meet credit that you do actually housing counseling, you have to do that. It's an asset certificate and there's few other requirements. Once you do that, then they only work with certain bank that agree to have this range of interest rate and so you will be taken advantage of. It's not that you can just aimlessly. You lose control because you don't get a choice. But they even split up the loan in two loans for me, but I actually got better interest rate on the smaller loan. So they really do try to navigate that for individuals with disabilities here in the state of Maryland. But I'm always thrilled to hear that, tiffany, that part of your catalyst is you want to continue to have that relationship with your clients who are disability, because so much of the housing is, you know, unless it's low income, whether it's additional safety guards.
Speaker 1:Individual disabilities really are just wandering through this in the private sector housing, and so I'm thrilled to hear that's a big component of what you do, you and Gretchen, I'm sure as well. Yeah, and you were saying about investments, tiffany. But Tiffany, how do you? Because I'm always about trying to show in the market, and maybe, gretchen, this is something, as a realtor, you can do as well, and that is how do you get investors to invest in accessible housing? Like, how do you do that?
Speaker 3:I think it's a hard one to break through, but what we do is we don't really mention ADA, we don't mention universal design. We just throw it in there and we pitch the design to them. So what we do is put together the design plans and how it accommodates more people and it's going to elevate your guest experience. So we want to help them get those five stars. In fact, we just spoke on the summit for Lorraine's recent summit for hosts and how to make their short-term rentals more accessible and functional. So what we do is we some of the homes may not be fully accessible, which is okay, but what we're trying to do is make it more functional and safe for anyone to stay in that place. And, for instance, if you have laundry in the basement, your average person is not going to want to go up and down the steps, especially two flights of stairs, every single day to do laundry, and it's just a lot of steps and a lot of chances and a lot of risk for falling, no matter what age you are. So we bring the laundries up into the unit and then we'll add simple things like vertical grab bars by the tubs, because most likely they're gonna have tubs in there. They're not gonna have showers, it's gonna be a tub shower combo. So anyone needs to have that vertical. You can have a broken foot and you're in a cast and you cannot get in and out of that shower easily without that vertical grab bar. Or you're in a cast and you cannot get in and out of that shower easily without that vertical grab bar. Or you're pregnant and you need a little bit extra help getting that leg over the threshold.
Speaker 3:So we try to highlight those important things and like lever style handles and everywhere the lighting, like we address all the little details and our goal and our hope is to sprinkle all of this into these investors and, as we keep working with them, is to try to buy them into. Okay, now let's make a fully accessible rental. But what we also look at is for opportunities. So if there's an opportunity there to create a zero step entry into the home, we look at that and we say, hey, I think you have an opportunity here and you're going to widen your renter and your buyer's market. And Gretchen can add to that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think objective data is how you get across to investors. I am a real estate investor myself and so it is not meant to say as a blanket greed comment. Yet if an investor knows they can increase their bottom line, then they're interested to know that. And so sharing objective data, like 26% of America lives with a disability and 0.15% of homes are accessible, that is enough for me to enter into a conversation with somebody about filling that gap.
Speaker 2:And while we, because we talk in this space and know this space very well, we know that accessibility doesn't equal fully universal design. So while we don't want to deter somebody from making a home accessible, we do also really take seriously the importance of education, so that people aren't marketing their properties as fully accessible when there's a six inch threshold to get into a shower because it might be accessible for grandma that can take one step with a grab bar, but for a wheelchair user that can't use their lower extremities, they are trapped and can't get clean. So just being super detailed on our education and when we're working with our clients, but also trying to gather as much data as possible so that we can be evidence-based in our practice, just like we were as clinical therapists.
Speaker 1:Gretchen. What other objectable data? I'd like to follow this thought, because there is a lack of education component. And so what other objectable data do you provide to investors to make a house personally designed, and not just this accessible blanket label? That can be nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, to Tiffany's credit, about four years ago 2020 maybe she started the Inclusive Design Alliance and we as a group it was a bunch of like-minded stakeholders in the community we got together and created a inclusive what did we call it? Udr criteria, universal design ready. So it's not universally designed, but it's educate. It's an education piece to show realtors when they're working with somebody that has a disability or somebody that wants to proactively live in place.
Speaker 2:Here are three very simple factors that we know objectively will not cost more than the average. Increased value, like the money you're putting in will not surpass the value, the return on that investment. And those are two or fewer steps to enter. So if you have two or fewer steps, you're able to decrease all steps, create a zero step entry for an affordable price. Anytime there's three or more steps, the grade is drastic and you might be investing more than you can get on the return.
Speaker 2:The second criteria that we educate on is having all living so kitchen, bedroom and bathroom on a level of entry not necessarily the main level, because in St Louis we have a lot of walkout basements and if it's a gradual or if you have a switch back down to a walkout basement, which we have seen. You can have a nice accessible apartment type setup in a basement. So, as long as there's a bathroom, bedroom and kitchen placed to cook meals on a level of entry, that is another indicator of a UDR home. And then, for new construction, 36-inch hallways. For existing construction, we waver, admittedly, back and forth between 32 and 34 inches. 34 would be preferred, but we do have a lot of older homes too, the closer you get to the city and it's really hard to achieve. So we those are some data points that we educate people on to make sure that they're not guiding their clients down the path of sinking a ton of money into a home that isn't going to appreciate to the level that they invested into it.
Speaker 1:And I really appreciate that that sounds a lot like. Also, the visibilityorg. The idea came back in the 70s and it was this idea that you design a whole fireway, not just based on the individuals that live there, but can people go actually visit who have a disability. And the visibilityorg has had some other data and they're talking about where you're building from the ground up. You know that having a zero step and delay is only so much X dollar and I wish I had on top of my head for the listener, but it's not a whole lot of extra money.
Speaker 1:So I do really appreciate having kind of those objectives, data points to share, because when I'm working with some realtors or even architects, they equate it with this and that, yeah, it sounds like a good idea to have accessible and we know accessible doesn't mean anything but that's what they use Accessible house and we know that there's a lot of people out there that can use it. But they equate it like it's almost like a pool. I mean some people would love to have a pool but others will be like it's too costly and it takes up space and I found that was an interesting analogy that I've seen a lot of people that I've been working with, so really trying to address that barrier, and I don't know about both of you ladies, but one thing that I get challenged with is this idea. It goes with the whole accessibility. Like what does that term mean? And I'm curious if you have come across a lot of confusion about this idea that ADA standards apply for everything. Like you're laughing, okay, no, no, I have to comment on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I will refrain comment on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will refrain from being misloyal here, but I would like to say to you ladies that are laughing, please I would like you to jump in about your experience. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3:It's just, it makes our skin crawl, like when people say that, or even contractors. But what we really like to promote, like we are not competition, we really like to say that we are collaborators, we are working together and we're empowering contractors, the trade, to help them understand why we are doing this, so that they can do this for future use, because everything by code and everything by oh, this is how we always do it. No, we can be creative, we can make this work. Let's work together. So that's why we really try to promote that we are huge collaborators. First of all, because we want them to work with us and we want to work with them because it takes a village to make all this stuff happen and we're not going to be able to do it by ourselves. That's the number one. Number two is when they say ADA, we're just like, it's just.
Speaker 3:Ada is really for public entities and commercial spaces, and what we always like to say is why not go beyond ADA? We don't have to stay within the box, we can design outside the box, we can get creative. We don't have to stick within these parameters, and that doesn't even apply to residential homes. So we really try to educate when we do seminars for, like, investors and contractors and stuff like that. We always like to educate them and let them know that we want to design beyond ADA. And it does not apply to residential homes, so that's number two. So, yeah, I think that's my big spill on it. Our biggest thing is go beyond ADA. Basically, I like that.
Speaker 3:I like that. You have the opportunity to do it, why not? You're saving money up front, you're being proactive, you're reducing stress later You're improving finances, because it is very stressful later. And it's like somewhere data wise somewhere I know I read something about is 22 times more to retrofit a home for accessibility than it is to do it up front. And and 36 inch doorways now are standard, so you're not paying that much extra for a 36 inch doorway. Yes, you have to modify one.
Speaker 3:That's going to be costly, because if the doorway is 28 or 28, that's a huge difference. And then you got to go up to 36 or a 30 or something like that. Then you got to redo the header and then you got to reframe the door and then you got to do the trim. It's a snowball effect.
Speaker 1:I know I had to do that to my house three times, ladies, because I have a one level rambler. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I will say, just to give a little nod to the US government, I am grateful that ADA became a thing. Yes, I am super challenged that it became a thing in 1990 and we haven't changed anything since. That's crazy to me. And so when people come to us, it's a lot of times business to business We'll be talking to contractors who are like, yeah, I build it, I know how to build an ADA shower, and it's do you? I know how to build an ADA house, and you're like that's an oxymoron, because ADA is not for houses, it's for commercial spaces. So we really tried to. We don't want to sound super disrespectful and I'm a little sarcastic if you can't tell, but I'll say oh, you like to do the bare minimum? Okay, all right, and if you want to keep doing the bare minimum, that's great. Here's the code book. But we really just try to educate, like Tiff said, just going beyond ADA, because it's better for all people it is, it really is.
Speaker 1:I tell people that standard is meant for public use. So do you really want to design a house that's only for public use, meaning that you're just going to use it one or two times and then leave for a residential home? Some people do get it, you're right. Like that ADA restaurant bathroom. Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily want to have all that in my own home and it doesn't meet the standards of a lot of people either.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it leaves out like a lot of people with disabilities. So it's not just like wheelchair users and stuff like that. But we also need to think about what some people don't think about is the change of technology and how wheelchairs change in the mobility equipment. They change in size over time. So what we do is we go in and we measure the person that's in the manual wheelchair and if they have a progressive neurological disorder, then we've got to measure them in their power wheelchair. So we look at how big their power wheelchair is. That's a larger turn radius, that's wider. So we factor in all of those things into the design to make for sure that both of those pieces of equipment will fit in their home now and for the future. And, for instance, another one is if someone has Parkinson's or MS, multiple sclerosis, they're walking, they're standing at the time and then later on in life they're going to need a baseball wheelchair, they're going to need to roll under sink, they're going to need probably roll in shower, curbless shower. But a lot of times if contractors do not know about that, then they will fix some $50,000 bathroom and then the three-inch threshold, yeah, and then you're going to have to go back in and redo it like five or 10 years, depending on how much, how progressive their disorder is. So we really factor in all of those things. That's why it's so critically important to have someone like us to come in and be a consult on those cases. So we work with the contractors to help them understand.
Speaker 3:You know, this is why we need to do this. We need to lower the switches, we need to raise the outlet and that sort of thing. And it's not just for people in wheelchairs. We think about people that have back problems, that are bending all of the time. Why not raise the outlet from the floors a little bit? They don't have to be at that level where electricians say they have to be at this mark. No, really, we can move it up a little bit, we can be flexible, but sometimes they're so set in that's what they've done on an everyday basis in their job. So it's just going in there to break the code a little bit and say it's okay if we can raise the outlets a little bit. That's just going to make it much more functional for someone and less vaccine.
Speaker 2:Or like lighting. A lot of people don't think about low vision individuals and that's great if your restroom has a five foot turn radius per ADA. But if it's dark as all, get out because you're at the moody, trendy Italian restaurant, the likelihood of somebody you don't even need to be 80. Like I, have terrible vision. Somebody could fall very easily or run into a wall and bleed all over the place at your fancy restaurant.
Speaker 1:Or I have a very close friend. He's also a lawyer and it's funny like even though I'm in a wheelchair, like in that like moody kind of Italian restaurant where everything's them, I had to go before him and be a guide because even though he could see a little bit, when it's like low lighting, it's can't see anything, just absolutely can't see anything, and so it's really more just grabbing my wheelchair and hoping that my back wheels will run over his toes in the process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you even think about not just people in wheelchairs. We're both moms, we've had strollers, we wheel around those things, and that's when my eyes opened up. Even more is when I had a stroller. I was like, oh my gosh, I cannot fit in this bathroom with this stroller. How do I go to the bathroom? There's been times that I go to the bathroom so bad I would just wiggle my way through. I don't care if I damaged the frames or whatever. I got to go to the bathroom to let me in. So I go in there. And you can't leave your kid outside the bathroom, so I just door doesn't close all the way, don't care, I'm going to go to the bathroom, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's not my fault If I got to go. I got to. Yeah, we're addressing the masses. Basically, I have a public health background, so I always think about prevention, promotion and how we can cater to the masses. And that's what universal design is it's just reaching across multiple users.
Speaker 1:Speaking of public health, both of you are OT. How do you feel an individual having a home that is fully universally designed and inclusive to them? How do you think that impacts that homeowner's health?
Speaker 2:what you all have seen. So I think, unfortunately, the general consumer doesn't see the need for it until they have a need for it. But I have firsthand experience of having a really sick father with stage four cancer who never had a physical mobility deficit ever in his life until cancer, and he just got really weak really fast. And so I helped my parents downsize and built a really neat. Knowing that he loved the outdoors and that he wanted to be outside all the time. They built a really neat deck in their back with a stamped concrete sloped ramp up to a primary bedroom with a shower, step-in shower.
Speaker 2:It's not a full roll-in, but him being able to have the dignity to pass away at home and be with his family and not have to go into a hospice house simply because he could get one. He was able to live there about a year before he started using a mobility device, but then when he used a walker he could still go up and down the ramp and then when he was in a wheelchair we could get him around very easily. And then when they brought that gosh darn hospice bed in, it was super easy to get it in, but he got to die at home, surrounded by people that he loved because of a universal design home. I think if anybody came to my mom's house today, nobody would be like, oh my gosh, this place looks like so hospital-like or so accessible. It's just intuitive and functional, and so it gives families the opportunity to live in their home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's creating togetherness. You're including everyone in your family. And I think of vacations too, like when you include everyone. I mean, you don't want anyone to feel excluded and you want to give them the joy to elevate the joy in the home and on vacation traveling. So that's why we think about more universal design for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you all combat the assisted living apartments and condos? Because I know one thing that I try to communicate if you go to assisted living, that when you need medical help, that condominium, that assisted living center will assist you. And I'm like, well, is that spelled out? Is that part of your HOA fees? And sometimes there are certain things that they do, but it's very diminutive. Sometimes it's just if you're lucky, a doctor comes in once a week or something like that. It's not like residential living that has baked in medical health. That's been some my experience and I would love to hear from both of you, especially if you're ot.
Speaker 1:We're seeing a lot of decisions living, so what are your ladies thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:that's a heavy one and I would say that proactive planning has always been the solution and will always be the solution. And aging we always joke. I like to say aging in place is the worst terminology and we shot ourselves in the foot when we made that. Like the culturally accepted slogan. It should be living in place, because aging in place sounds like you're decaying. Where you are stuck it's like a dying tree. So I like to think of living in place and I think everybody, 34 up to 74, should have a plan, a real estate plan, a construction plan. Everybody should know, and it's not something you need to do every year. But if you bought a house two years ago and you have no idea what, it's not something you need to do every year. But if you bought a house two years ago and you have no idea what it's going to cost to renovate your bathroom or what it's going to cost to bring a bedroom down from the second level and make your formal dining room that you never use into a primary suite with a bedroom and bathroom, you should know those numbers so that you can have a savings account. Let it earn some interest in a market account. But you should know those numbers because lemons are thrown at you. Life is not guaranteed. Like I said, my dad was 57 when his cancer diagnosis came. My parents were just chugging along. My dad was still working full time. You just don't know when life is going to change. So I am a huge proponent of proactive planning. And if you know that your two-story home, or even a single-story ranch like, if you know that your home, isn't going to be conducive if life does throw you those lemons, then know the assisted living options in your area, know the differences between all of the different type of senior living communities Is it a CCRC or is it an independent living or is it a skilled nursing, and what does that mean and have a plan so that your loved ones, your spouse, your children, can just go to the playbook.
Speaker 2:Okay, mom had a stroke. This is terrible. And mom said, if she had a stroke, that she had an account with $40,000 in it to renovate a bathroom let's do it. Mom said, if she had a stroke, that she had an account with $40,000 in it to renovate a bathroom, let's do it. Mom said, if she had a stroke, she wants to move and have 24-hour care let's do it. So I just think nobody plans, everybody is in default mode and the decisions that are made and the money that is spent out of urgency is really sad and it's stressful and we like to call it proactive designing.
Speaker 3:So it's proactively designing our spaces to where we can live in place. And I will have to say that we experienced a similar thing with my family. My grandfather was living in his home. They had a second floor master primary bedroom bathroom, but then they had a guest suite on the first floor that wasn't big enough but they were sleeping in there and they were staying there on the first floor. After he turned, like I think 80, 90 or something like that, they hired me to do the work. They were my very first client, known as a very good test.
Speaker 3:My grandfather is set in his ways, your typical older gentleman that doesn't want to spend money and doesn't want to make change and all of this stuff. And so it was so fun to have him as my first client to be that challenging because I needed it. And then, number two, I was able to do everything by hand and manually. So I sketched everything out for them and we designed their guest suite on the first floor and expanded the bathroom. We saw room and opportunity to make a larger bathroom. It was a very teeny, tiny bathroom. I don't know how they survived in that bathroom for that long.
Speaker 3:But thankfully we did all of that and he had a stroke. Just like Gretchen said, things like that happen and he was able to pass away at home as well. So he died at home. He was with his family when he passed away. He did not have to go into hospice and my family was able to transfer him and he was able to use his mobility equipment without any problem because he had space for it on both sides of the bed into the bathroom to be able to take a shower, so he was able to stay there. If we had not done any of those things even though they had a main floor bedroom and a bathroom he would not have been able to stay there unless we made those modifications, and we did that two years before that happened.
Speaker 1:Wow, I love to hear the pro planning. I'm sorry for your loss, but again, I'm happy that your grandfather was able to pass away at home. I read a data point that I came across, and that is they. They said that for every year that you are not in a nursing home, you get three years at home, meaning that if your house is safe I think it was like safe it provides, provides that medical attention, whether it's a nurse coming in, things like that you get three extra years. I believe that I try to find out like, how, like what studies they did for that, and I couldn't really find it, but I think it's just one of those numbers that just makes sense. Yeah, like it just makes sense.
Speaker 1:Okay, maybe it's two years instead of three years, but yeah, but that's a good, that's a good return on your home investment and the reason why I was really hard-pressed to find that kind of data point it's going back to assisted living is that I feel like most people think that they're proactive planning. It's that the only option they have, because I had somebody a very good friend in my accessible house, by the way, okay, has known me for four years. At that time I was having a house party and she brought another friend I've met casually and then her friend talked to me what are you going to do with so-and-so, who has some medical issues and whatnot? And like, oh, she's going to go to a nursing home. And then I'm like, okay, what about you? Because you say you're going to live in a house, what about me? I'm like are you going to make anything accessible? And she has said no. What other choice would I have? Would I get like my grandmother? Of course, the only other option is to go into a nursing home and if I plan ahead, it's an assisted living.
Speaker 1:It just seems like for a lot of people, the pro-planning aspect that you speak of, gretchen, which I totally agree with you on that is it's either plan ahead, I go assist the living. If I don't, it's nursing this idea that there is a third option, even with some people that have known me that's why I call my book my Blue Front Door was if you read the preamble. I did. I was very proud because I didn't have a designer with me. So I had to do a lot of this research all on my own, by all the contractors on my own, because I just didn't trust anybody. There wasn't anybody locally that they kept saying ADA and I knew better than ADA did Run for the hills Right.
Speaker 1:But the lawyer in me knew like no, it's not the ADA. I'm not quite sure what it is, but it's not the ad like it is. Powerpoint presentation slideshow of the house before and the house afterwards yeah, my housewoman probably has a friend.
Speaker 1:They wanted to throw it to get together for me and I put she up a wall and so that was just like rotating and people go in. But the reason I bring it up and I talk about it in my preamble wall, and so that was just like rotating and people go in. But the reason I bring it up and I talk about it in my preamble of the book and that was someone once said it was another friend, she goes. Why did you have to do all this construction? Why didn't you just get an accessible house? Why didn't you just buy an accessible house? I missed that. Why didn't I think of that? And I was like a couple of drinks in and I will say what the hell? You mean, I'm not that effing stupid, or something like that. And then I actually go.
Speaker 1:Why did you think that she goes? Things are accessible. You see that handicap, this handicap parking and the handicap sets and, at least in the disability community, that kind of assumption by the able-bodied community that everything is accessible. We call that blue the blue myth or the blue mist because of the handicap sign and so that's why I call my like my blue front door as a nod, that you know the one little handicap sign listed on the outside of the door of the house that I bought, and but it's just really challenging to get people to realize that things just are not accessible and that you do have this good option outside of assisted living and nursing home. It's just so frustrating.
Speaker 2:It's. And even when you're trying to do, even when you are acutely aware of all of that, you still make missteps as an able-bodied person like me, trying to hand Tiffany my AirPod and saying we're going to share AirPods, we're hearing aids. Hi, I'm Tiffany. Do you remember me?
Speaker 1:Here's my hearing aid.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, good example, great example.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we don't do it intentionally, it's just more of I even do it myself. But I do want to comment on the universal design aspect of homes because I think this is really interesting and I've always noticed this. But I always feel like and I know this is a fact but if people were to see it in person and experience it, then they would be more, there'll be more buy in for it. Like when you talk about it and when you explain it and you show pictures, that's great. It doesn't really get that buy-in. But if you show someone and the reason I say this because this happened in St Louis with the builder he provided a plan that was universal design and he put it and this one person wanted it in the neighborhood he was building, and so all the neighbors came over to this person's house that was universal design, and they were like oh man, I really love your house, your hallways are wide, I really like this. And they were asking about how did you get this plan? And he was like I asked for it, and so it's because they experienced it.
Speaker 3:So if you put two houses up on the street that are built exactly the same, one is universal design and one is not. One may have 36 inch doorways, the other one may have 28 or 30 inch doorways, and you think about that and put that up to which one is going to go fastest, which one's going to sell the fastest. So you think about which one's more functional versus, and they look exactly the same and the only difference is like the clearance spaces, the lighting is better. It just makes more sense in that way. So I always think of it that way. It's how, like, we give people the experience, the experience, that level of what they need, and then they want to buy it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, let me ask you both the questions. This is something that's funny. You mentioned that because I've always believed that if you can touch it, you can feel it. Yeah, all right, ladies, is there anything else you would like to share with the audience?
Speaker 2:I think we covered a lot. We appreciate you having us. It was a fun conversationcom. However, we do consult nationally, so if you need virtual assistance, don't be scared by the STL in our website name, so you can find us again wwwcustomjoystlcom. And you're in St Louis correct.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, great, all right, thank you. Horizontalhousescom is the hub for all things related to disability home ownership. You will find my blog, this podcast, my book and how my consulting services can help real estate agents or housing developers market and tap into the largest minority group, the disability community. Please help me continue this exploration of disability home ownership by connecting through my Facebook page. Remember, sharing our collective experiences will allow us each to lower the kitchen sink but raise the bar for disability home ownership. Thank you,