Flagstaff, AZ

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2022

Project Category: Innovative home maintenance, repair and support services

Description: Organizers with Red Feather recognized that Native elders have a strong cultural preference to age in place in their own homes. To help older adults from the Hopi and Navajo tribes, the nonprofit set out to make elders' home safer. Case managers made home visits to conduct aging in place assessments, create a plan to modify homes and educate homeowners about safety. The nonprofit also modified homes, installing a ramp, repairing a roof and providing new kitchen appliances. Organizers say the initiative helped address health disparities -- Native elders have a lower life expectancy and higher rates of disability and chronic health conditions than other populations. Organizers anticipate home modifications will reduce falls, keeping elders out of the hospital.

Durham, NC

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2018

Project Category: Innovative home maintenance, repair and support services

Description: Like many places, Durham is experiencing an affordable housing crisis, with many longtime residents displaced from their neighborhoods. To help residents remain in their homes, Durham Habitat for Humanity expanded its Repairs Program services for low-income, older and disabled residents. The organization purchased a second-hand work truck, which helps work crews perform repairs and home maintenance tasks. Since the purchased, Habitat's teams improved homes in a year, representing a 50 percent increase from the year before. The improvements address unsafe living conditions and make homes more accessible for residents of all ages and abilities. Organizers say providing cost-effective repairs preserves affordable housing and curbs gentrification.

Farmville, VA

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2017

Project Category: Innovative home maintenance, repair and support services

Description: The Farmville Area Habitat for Humanity purchased a trailer and equipped it with tools, which the organization uses to make safety improvements to homes. Often owned by local families for generations, many of the homes need significant repairs. Project organizers report the trailer -- which is branded with Habitat's logo and contact info -- helps raise awareness of the home repair program. They also say other local Habitat branches have expressed interest in their own mobile repair trailers. Since the trailer purchase, the repair initiative has grown, with Habitat seeing more applications. It has since expanded its services to neighboring counties.