Grand Forks, ND

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2023

Project Category: Micromobility enhancements/management

Description: This project will enable the Grand Rides Bike Share program to provide e-bikes and adaptive bikes to encourage ridership among people aged 50.

Medford, OR

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Lifelong housing and accessibility

Description: Recent wildfires and the COVID-19 pandemic compounded a growing homelessness crisis in Medford. Part of a statewide initiative to expand non-congregate emergency shelter services, Rogue Retreat worked to convert the 47-room Redwood Inn into transitional housing. This project made accessibility upgrades to a single-room-occupancy unit on the property. Rogue Retreat hired an architect to design features including a zero-step entranceway, ADA-compliant handrails in the unit's bathroom and accessible features for the kitchenette. The upgrades allow Rogue Retreat to provide shelter for unhoused individuals of all ages and abilities, giving them needed stability as they search for permanent housing.

Powhatan County, VA

AARP Community Challenge Grant Year: 2021

Project Category: Lifelong housing and accessibility

Description: The site of Powhatan's historic Pocahontas School sat unused for many years. Organizers with Habitat for Humanity saw the campus as an opportunity to provide needed affordable housing for local older adults. To envision possibilities for the space, Habitat hosted four community design. At the workshops community members worked with a local architectural firm to draw up plans to transform two school structures into apartment buildings offering one- and two-bedroom units. Once completed, the development will offer 21 new affordable housing units in total. Organizers say the charrette also helped attract 2.2 million in financing for the project. Going forward, Habitat plans to continue to explore ways to fill the area's growing need for affordable housing.