How A Social Worker Turned Realtor Is Changing Home Design To Make Independence Last

Ever wish your home could flex with real life—injuries, illness, toddlers, workouts, flu season, or just wanting to stay put without sacrificing style? That’s the heartbeat of our conversation with accessibility consultant and realtor Jackie Haddon, whose rare mix of SRES, CAPS, universal design expertise, and clinical social work reframes the whole “aging in place” debate. We dig into the words that shut people down, the stories that change minds, and the practical fixes that quietly prevent falls, cut future costs, and keep dignity front and center.

Jackie shares the deeply personal ALS story that pulled her from running a mental health agency into housing advocacy, design, and certification. We unpack what really derails independence—one-inch thresholds, tight bathrooms, misplaced outlets—and how caregiver-informed planning avoids expensive do-overs. For builders and remodelers, Jackie offers a powerful shift: it’s not upselling, it’s stewardship. If a client’s goal is staying 20 years, ethics and economics both say “design for it now.” For realtors, we talk about making accessibility discoverable in the MLS with standardized features and clear definitions so families can finally search for what they need.

We also look ahead: ADUs as elegant downsizing options, multigenerational housing as a rising norm, and policy incentives pushing Type A accessibility beyond ADA. Jackie’s standout example is a luxury multigenerational home that hides accessibility in plain sight—artful grab bars, generous wet rooms, beautiful finishes—proving safety can be stunning. Whether you’re a homeowner, contractor, designer, or part of the sandwich generation, you’ll leave with practical language, smarter checklists, and a new lens: universal design isn’t about age, it’s about being human.

If this resonated, share it with someone planning a remodel, subscribe for more human-centered housing insights, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Thanks for listening! 

Sign up to our Homeowners Newsletter - it's a weekly newsletter filled with expert tips and advice on how to age safely and more comfortably in your own home.

If you provide services for modifying homes for disabled or seniors aging in place, sign up to our directory and expand your business.

Transcript

Meet Jackie Haddon And Her Expertise

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello everyone, this is Esther Kane, and um I wanted to begin this. I wanted to do this little intro because when I did the interview with uh Jackie Haddon, we just went right into conversation. There was so much to share and so much to learn from her that I don't think we did a proper introduction. So I wanted to do that right here at the very beginning. Jackie Haddon is a realtor in Portland, Oregon, but she has specialty training in working with older adults and in what they need and could use as they're looking to age in place. She has the SRES certification for realtors, which gives her that training. But in addition to that, she is also a certified aging in place specialist. She also is has universal design, certified uh professional you know, not a degree, but certification and universal design. She's also an accessibility consultant. I mean, she is everything, you know, that you need in someone to help you not only identify the things that you need in a home to make it uh safe and enjoyable and you know amazing for whatever it is that you're going to be doing with that home, either aging in place, raising a family, or anything. So buying or selling is certainly, you know, she is the person to reach out to. And if I lived in Portland, Oregon, I would certainly be using her. So here is the interview with Ms. Jackie Haddon. She has a lot to say, and I think you're gonna learn quite a bit from her. So thank you very much for tuning in, and here's the interview. Hi, Jackie! Oh my goodness. It's always something. Tech is so great when it works. I know, and that's what it doesn't. Yeah, there's nothing more humbling than trying to navigate everything. I know. I tell everybody, you know, don't worry about being perfect or being an expert because nobody is. Especially nowadays with AI. It's just it's constantly changing every day.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Well, it seems like you've got it pretty nailed down. You're all over the place on LinkedIn, social media. I'm trying all the things.

The Directory Problem And Industry Silos

SPEAKER_02 2:27

I'm trying. I really want to boost up the Aging in Place Directory because I I get so many calls, well, not calls, but texts and emails from people looking for the services. And at this point, if I don't have, you know, if I don't have anybody in that area, and it's usually rural areas. So if I don't have anyone in that area, then I have to go, I go online and I hunt for them and then I send them a list. But I mean, hunting for them is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Find one person on Facebook, hardly anybody has a website, maybe another one on LinkedIn, maybe, you know, the National Association of Home Builders is the worst directory website I've ever seen. And a lot of them that are on there aren't even doing it anymore. Um, it's just it's a mess. It's really a mess. So it just makes sense to have anything. And then so many people who are in the industry or in the niche aren't talking to other people in the niche. You know, I can't believe how many contractors or builders or whatever handymen would aren't talking with designers. I know, declutterers, or you know, I don't know, estate planners or reverse mortgage people, or I mean, it it I I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

It is astounding. And I talk to um, so I'm on the board of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry here in the Pacific Northwest, and I do their universal design certified professional trainings. So I'm doing one this week, starting a new session this week, which is it which is NAHB's correlative to caps, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:15

So for contractors, yeah, I took that when I took the caps. I took that also.

Reframing The Aging Conversation With Contractors

SPEAKER_00 4:20

UDCP, yeah. Um, and so I'm talking with contractors all the time, just for all different aspects of my world. And I'm just shocked at how, like you say, how siloed everything is, right? Where I'm like, well, why don't you have even to the even to this? Like I um there's a a guy here locally, and our kids are the same age. We are on the board together. He's just the sweetest human in the world, and he has a really high quality, smaller design build firm. Um, and he knows all about what I do. And I took him out to lunch and I was like, listen, I know you'll give me honest feedback. Let me pick your brain. Why have you not called me for an accessibility consultation? So is there, you know, what is it? Because I need to have that feedback. I don't really understand of anyone, I would think he would be the one that would call, right? Are you not doing that work or like what's happening? And he said, Well, it's just, you know, Jackie, part of the way we work, you know, we build what people ask us to build. And so if someone comes in and and they want a kitchen or a bathroom and they don't, I mean, we'll suggest, hey, what about a curb list? But if they don't want it, you know, what are we gonna do? And I was like, so interesting. And so we and I said, So are you feeling like it's upselling somehow to talk about aging? And he said, Sort of, but also people get really offended, right? If I say, Have you thought about aging in place? And I said, All right, yeah, I can get that. I mean, obviously, people do when I talk about it too. So, um, and so we ended up, we had we talked for an hour, we had lunch, and by the end of it, and I and at one point I just couldn't get a way to shift his thinking of it, wasn't his place to suggest. And then finally, I was like, Okay, Mike, so tell me this. If someone tells you they want to remodel their kitchen and you open up the wall and there's problems with the plumbing, do you just close back the wall and not say anything because they didn't ask you to redo the plumbing? And he's like, Well, no, obviously, you know, I'll say this this is what it's gonna cost, but it's much more efficient to do this now. If your goal is to not remodel down the road, you should be doing this now. And I was like, Great, that is what you should be talking about with your clients. Yeah. If their goal is to be in this home, they just paid to remodel for the next 20 years and they are 60 years old, then it is your job as a responsible ethical contractor to say, hey, I hear this is your goal, and I'm hearing that you want these things. I'm gonna suggest if you want to be here for the next 20 years, we do some changes to make it available to you for the next 20 years, right? It's not upselling, it's being a steward of your craft, right? And so, because they're going to come back to you in 10 years and say, we needed grab bars, we needed a Kerbish shower, and you're saving them money.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

And it was like it was like a light bulb went on. He was like, Oh, oh, and I said, So you don't have, and and I said, you know, I can come train your sales staff, I can train your design team. He has a lovely designer on his team, and I can do all the training, and you don't need me all the time, you know. Once you're trained up, you don't need me to talk to your clients. Ivy, your designer can talk to your clients, right? But until then, you need someone to help you have to show you how to have the conversations, to give you the words, because you're a contractor, you're not, you don't have a social work training like I do, right? You're not an accessibility person, you're not a social worker. So I get why it's hard, nobody wants to hear it. So let me give you different words to just talk about being a sensible steward of your home.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Right. I think you're right. I think it's about the words. I think the phrase aging in place is the turn off. You know, there's a contractor here in Atlanta. Um, I'm in Atlanta, Georgia, and there's a contractor here who calls it accessible living. He doesn't even say anything about aging. It's like it's an accessible living, you know, how do you make the the uh living room, the bathroom, whatever. So as you say, so that 20 years from now it's it's easy and you don't have to spend more money to change it. Yeah, exactly. It's I think coming from that angle, you're absolutely right. I mean, you should write an article about that and put it on LinkedIn. If you know an article about that, definitely, because yeah, use AI to help you because it can do it so easily.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

But um well, and it's the aging in place and grab bars. It's like those are the two worst like combinations of words you can say in the human language, as far as I can tell.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

I know. So talk about something else, you know. Don't even mention grab bars, just say, I I don't know. I honestly don't even know. You know, that would be an interesting conversation to have with um there's a program um called Notebook LM. Do you have you heard of it? Okay, it's a great little program that I I think you can do three entries for free, and then and then, or you can do a monthly thing. I think it's$20. I don't know what it is, but anyway, whatever. You can put in a YouTube video, you can put in articles, up to 50 articles, you can put in anything, and then it will create an audio for you of two people talking, not reading the information, but talking about it like a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Yeah, so the program scans that information and then discusses it.

unknown 9:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:43

You can also create a video, which is these great videos with this one, two, three, you know, breaking it all down. But now they have a debate section. So you can put in the information and then the two people that discuss the information debate it.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

You know, Esther, I think someone just so my middle child just went off to college and I was talking to someone else, and I think they were telling me about this as how their daughter studies because she has a really hard time with visual process. I mean, she doesn't visually process things. And I think she told me about this because then she has this long commute back and forth to school and she listens to people discussing the issue, which is a more yeah, you know, uh more really resonates with her more in terms of education.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Yeah, it's so interesting. It is notebook LM. It it's on it's from Google, just go to Notebook LM. But it's um, it does. It gives you a study guide, it gives you frequently asked questions. Um, it's just it's amazing the things that it does. And what I like about it is that it just gives you a different perspective of how to do things. And for me, I'm taking my articles and I'm putting them in there and creating the podcast audio. Um, and then I'm doing some videos too. And I just saw an article by somebody on LinkedIn, a really great article on the sandwich generation, and it was so good. I put it into Notebook LM, created the video, and sent it to her. I said, here, you know, send this out because it's a great way to market your article without people having to read the entire article. Yeah, you know, because people have short-term attention spans. Yeah. So a seven-minute video is easier than a 10-minute read for some people, you know. That's so good.

Humor, Language, And Real-Life Fall Stories

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, and I find when I have the the actual conversations, you know, and we joke about because the name, so we do this presentation, we do a numerous presentations to realtors and homeowners and contractors. But the one that gets the most press, um, especially with realtors, is called Can Grab Bars Be Sexy? And so it's all about like making it fun, making it cool. And then we bring in, you know, we do sometimes we do them on Zoom. It's more fun to do them in person because then we bring in all of our these beautiful grab bars and people can play with them and talk with them, and we tell jokes about them and and talk about all the different ways we use them. And one of the things I talk about is is that is don't talk about aging and play with your clients unless they use that terminology. Yes, right. Right. Because what but what you can talk about, what's gonna change the narrative is use sharing stories about times in your life when you have needed something to hang on to, right? Or when you have fallen. Yeah. Recovering from the flu, uh, a hard workout at the gym, weeding in the backyard, you know, an a car accident. Just use stories people can relate to that are all across the aging spectrum and kind of bring in this later end of the spectrum at some point. And the story I use the one of the stories I use the most that makes people laugh is this same child that just went off to college. He is the most active child. And so he would jump everywhere, jump, jump, jump, all the time, jumping, jumping, including in the shower, which did not have a grab bar. And he had a he had a slightly oversized head. My husband also has a big head. So when he was learning to walk and we had hardwood floors, he was just falling all the time. He'd pull himself up on the couch and then over bat, tip over and hit his head on the floor. So it was this horrible joke that we'd be like, Well, two more IQ points, you know. Okay, he's never gonna sculpt, you know, cure cancer. Um, but he would jump in the shower and we would say, like, don't jump in the shower. You keep falling. It's wet, it's slippery. And I didn't want to shower with him all the time. Um, but he but he just did. He could, he was active, he was bouncy, he couldn't stop. And so I say, like, had I had a grab bar in the shower, yeah, he would 100% have hung on to it because he would have been able to jump higher, right? He would have really been able to catch air and he wouldn't have fallen because he would have been holding on to something, right? So it's not about, you know, and and other and if he wasn't in the shower, we would have hung our swimsuits from it, right? We're in our 30s, we weren't thinking about anything. Sure. Um but and he he would have saved his a few IQ points. Um, and he the all the rest of our family history when someone has had a sports injury, when I have to put my back out, when someone's had the COVID, when everybody's dizzy and sick with COVID, we would have hung on to something, right? Um and so, yes, aging, and that's such a small part of your life when you can fall, right? Like you can fall. It's true.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

But the thing is, it only takes a second. It only takes a second. It only takes one second for that accident to happen. I mean, I worked in neural, you know, uh with geriatrics, neurological impairments. So I got all kinds of head injuries, you know, Alzheimer's dementia, but the head injuries were the ones that just I mean, I was so it was so upsetting to get a client who was active dancing, archery, doing whatever. And they did they tripped over a rug, they crashed into a coffee table, um, going down the stairs with some laundry, whatever. And one second they fell, cracked their head, and that's the end of it. And it didn't have to be. It didn't have to be. It's so sad, and it's just like, don't you want to stay independent? Right. But do the things you need to do to stay independent, you know?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

I mean and everybody, you know, I was just at a home uh this past week. The son I'd done a presentation, and the the adult son called me and said, Hey, you know, I I kind of want you to come out and assess my parents' house. And I went out, gorgeous house, you know, money's certainly not an issue in this family, beautiful, single-level daylight ranch. Um, but they were everything so easy to age in. And um, and really only needed, I just sent off the report, didn't need a lot, you know, to to make it easy for them. Grab bars, you know, a couple things. So, so the and they'll do all that now. But when I got there, the father was who was very polite, had no interest in talking to me. And he had this huge welt on his head because he had just fallen, which is what triggered his child to make this call. So I'm meeting with the adult son, the father, and the mother. The mother is clearly very active, has the most beautiful posture I've ever seen in my life. I'm sure she does yoga like five times a day. Um husband's a little bit older with this massive welt on his head, right? So he is like, I'm gonna let you talk to them. I don't really think we need any of this. And then as I'm talking about, you know, the ridiculousness of being human. Like we just our bodies are not meant to, you know, to really be do the things we need to do, they can end up being frail. And we will always protect our bodies. When we start falling, we're gonna grab something. And hopefully this something is gonna help us and that doesn't make it worse. And so I'm telling this story about we're gonna walk through the house. This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna look from the perspective of if I fell right now, what would I grab? And that's the feedback I'm gonna give you. So, you know, just understand that's the process. And I said something about so if I stood up right now and I grabbed this chair, I would fall over, right? The chair is not heavy enough. So this is not a solid oak, you know, chair that was Victorian chair that's gonna keep me up, it's gonna fall. And he kind of laughed and he was like, Yeah, right. And I was like, Okay. Like, I need you to get on board with what I'm saying. And it was very funny and lovely and jokey, but it was then, and all and and then he started warming up to it, right? He was like, You're not gonna, you know, I don't you don't want to come in here and put grab bars everywhere. And I was like, you don't want another one of those on your head, right? So let's have a real conversation about the fact that we fall. It doesn't need to be embarrassing, it's not about you getting older, it makes it harder to heal, sure. But I can fall as easily in this house as you can from that dumb, really expensive rug that's on your carpet that I just tripped on. You just watched me trip on it. So it helps to have, you know, and it was just such a, and I have, you know, you have these examples. I have these examples. Um, but it's such a it's it's so affirming to me every time I'm in those situations where I'm like, of course we can have these conversations. People are willing to have these conversations. You just need to take the threat out of them and the perceived judgment out of them of you're calling me old. Yeah, you're calling me old and frail. And if you put that grab bar in my house, it is a signal to everyone I love that I'm about to die. Right.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Right, right. Because at the end of the day, it's emotional. At the end of the day, I mean it's financial too, I get it, but it's emotional. You know, no one wants to admit they're getting older, no one wants to admit that they can't do what they did when they were 20 uh or 30 or whatever. And you you're right. You are so right in approaching it with humor and approaching it with relatability. Look, I tripped over the shrug and you know, whatever. I mean, anybody can do it. It's it doesn't it doesn't mean uh anything, you know, for you. But the point is you don't want another one of those or a broken shoulder or hip or whatever is gonna put the reality is as you said, as you get older, it takes a lot longer to heal.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

It takes a lot longer to heal. And I talk a lot once I once I'm able, like kind of once I'm in, once I use the humor to get in, I talk a lot about just the reality of of grief and identity change and mortality. And and one of the things that we talk about a lot is you know, you can do this now, or you can do this in the middle of grieving the loss of who you were, right? Right. So you can be working with a contractor when it's just an annoying remodel, or you can be working with a contractor when you are. grieving your husband's mortality. Right. When do you think you're going to make better decisions?

ALS, Caregiving, And A Broken Housing Fit

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Right. Right. It's about right. I like to talk about the fact that it's a choice. You can because now you have the ability to control the situation. You have the choice of what to do, when to do, in order to prevent anything, whatever. But later on, if something were to happen and you ended up in a wheelchair or whatever, then choices are become limited because then you have to do it right then and there. So picking the contractor, getting all the you know, tile and whatever, it it it's all it becomes a big blur and you end up making mistakes because you didn't weren't able to take the time. And the choices are taken out of your hands. And and who wants that? Everybody wants to be in control of their own house, of course. So yeah, I mean prevention we all know prevention is something humans don't tend to do very well. So how do you the conversation is very, very important. Very important.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Well and it's funny Esther because it is something we like I you know I think about being a a mom to young children, right? I bet there is safety stuff all over my house. I was very aware that that glass coffee table could like kill my child right I was in hyper aware more aware than I needed to be right the first child of like oh my God they're so breakable I've never you know I shouldn't even have them who gave me a permit for this and so there's protecting you know ugly things all over the house to protect them.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

And then we get to this other phase where we are just you know it we never stop having the ability to fall. But at some point as we get older it becomes shameful right that there's something wrong with us that we're falling versus we have bones and sinews and ligaments you know and balance and we just fall or stand upright, which means we could fall down from where we are at any given time. But we do do it well and we do take effort you know we wear seatbelts we wear helmets we do all sorts of things to protect ourselves but it's this shame part around aging in our society that that makes us want to give the the as we get older that suddenly we want to appear as if we need it less right and so it's a funny I think it's such a funny thing. And and I think with my higher end clients as well what comes up a lot you know and this leads into the certification we have is I we have all these things and all these things are great. And then they say I don't want to spend all this money only to have it to have to take it all out when I sell this home. And like yeah so we're not going to and part of being planful now is we're going to get you really high end fixtures, right? We're going to do a beautiful job because you know the house you keep trying to find that you want to downsize into that's really beautiful and ready to remodel and that doesn't exist, which I know because I'm also a realtor someone else looking for that house will buy this house right we're going to make this house that unicorn everybody's searching for right so it's safe for you to live in it's beautiful for you. And when it's time for you to leave this house if you decide to someone else has already been searching for this house with this level of finishes with this beautiful finish. And so your house will fly off the market for faster because I can tell you you can't find the house you want to move into and neither can anybody else because the houses don't exist right so right I mean go ahead and and from the so from that realtor side you know we talk a lot about resale but then we have this home certification program where not only are we talking about resale but we're making it really easy for realtors to find because it's listed in the MLS and then we train the realtors on what to look for. How do you use accessible features? How do you tick these boxes in your listing so that people can find what you're looking for and you can be certifying these homes that qualify so that that in itself becomes the searchable feature. The livable home certification becomes the searchable feature because behind that is all the accessible features that you know level one means all of these accessible features are there. And it doesn't become this really you know subjective like oh I don't know what that means what is a wide hallway what's a wide doorway you know it's very it's very laid out and it's and all those definitions already exist in the real estate standards organization that is behind every accessible feature that a realtor checks and no realtor is ever trained on those definitions or how to use accessible features. Nobody I've never talked to a realtor that even knew that those definitions were there. Never even the in the uh after you do the SRES yeah I didn't learn about them I didn't know I mean and maybe I blanked it out but I didn't know about RESO. I don't even think I'd ever heard that acronym of Real Estate Standards organization until I started working with Rogue Valley Council of Government with their lifelong housing program which created the certification and they Connie Saldania who created it was on the board the data sharing board at RISO and so it is the definitions from the certification we offer that RISO adopted nationally. It's the same and and those are all ANSI type A kind of universal design codes um but I had never heard of it and I was a realtor until Connie talked about it and I was like I don't even know what RISO is.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Now in Southern Oregon here in southern Oregon in her MLS because she's the first one that got it into her and they have a little MLS there for realtors they have when it has an accessible feature there's a little question mark in it and you can hit that and it pulls up the definition. Ours does not so we are in the rest of almost in the rest of Oregon the MLS because I'm in an urban center in Portland we don't have that you can't pull up the definition and people don't know there's a people don't know there's a definition to look for right and so they're not like I wonder what an accessible feature is. I'm going to go to reso that I've never heard of before.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

So there's tons of education that go behind it. And when we do that education because we also offer the certification that is really that that that comes into play at time of resale. So it's valid for you know it's very valuable for for realtors and for then builders and builders who want to market to this demographic multi-generational young families um you know people are aging in place as we continue to get the word out and work with more builders um and hopefully get some developer contracts which is what we're working on that that becomes then a standard right we understand that we need more accessible housing we understand we need to build for all ages all family configurations all heights all abilities right and and and this is how people will know like lead certification right I don't know all of the re things that go behind a lead certification but I know that if a building has one they've probably done a good job with energy right like that's right which is fine. I don't have to know everything it isn't the field I'm in but similar to accessibility people don't need to know all the definitions but they do need to know this is a home they could move in comfortably and they can live in if they have this level of ability right that certification is not just in Oregon right it's nationwide. It's not nationwide yet so we're working with um so we're at we're in Washington and Oregon um we're working with National Aging and Place Council to talk about starting we've we've had interest from other states and we just haven't had the whole package ready to roll it out because what we don't want to do um we want to be able to to make sure that there is that there's um quality oversight for the programming right we don't want to dilute it and have someone say we're certified and then no one actually went out to see if it was certified. So we've been putting a lot of effort into making sure that we have a really strong package and that we have the ability to do the administrative oversight that if someone wants to bring a certification program to their community that we can make sure that it stays in integrity with the the program itself out here. So National Aging and Place Council has shown some interest in helping with that rollout and taking that on as an advocacy project for them. And they've talked about in the initial conversations we've had which there's a million conversations that have to happen but in the conversations we've had talked about um potentially targeting Georgia and Maryland as as two of the first places because they have presence in Georgia and Maryland.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Oh Georgia that is cool I love that idea because I mean 10,000 plus people a day turning 65 till 2030 40 I don't know and then the next generation is is going to go so it's just the demographic is there. The need is there you know um I I hope builders do more one story you know ranch homes I hope if not I understand you know land I I get it they can put more housing on land then okay then install residential elevators you know whatever it is to make it safer and as you say not just for aging but for accessibility for all age groups I mean all age groups so I I love that now I I want to understand how I mean I I became an OT and then um an internet marketer and now a blogger.

From Social Work To Real Estate And CAPS

Certification, MLS, And Making Features Searchable

SPEAKER_00 29:43

I mean I understand you going from one to the other so Jackie tell me how you went from one to the other yes well I've been a social worker a clinical social worker and that's been my professional background and so did a lot of had a private practice in therapy I ran a mental health agency so a lot of just interaction with you know the obstacles people have to live well in their life right whether that's mental health you know behavioral or physical yeah um and then in 2019 uh end of 2018 maybe my father-in-law was diagnosed with ALS and they were living in southern Oregon in a house that had been designed for someone to live in with a wheelchair so they had an elevator big wide spaces Kerbish shower all of that but what they weren't was near family nor were they near an ALS clinic. So up here in Portland which is about six, seven hour drive from where they were um there's a very very renowned ALS clinic through prop the Providence health system. So they knew that they wanted to be closer to us they were on five acres out in this beautiful wine country um they knew they wanted to be closer to us they knew they needed to be closer to an ALS clinic to get the help so they moved up closer to us but in that time so he was diagnosed the end of 2019 he just had a limp and they thought he had a pinched nerve so we went in for a surgical consult for a pinched nerve in his hip and came out with this diagnosis. They got a second opinion in San Francisco they were told it was a slow progressing type, you know not genetic slow progressing which was all good news. So they started looking for homes up here again I was running this mental health agency not in real estate my cousin was in real estate and so I said I want you to help them find this house. So they're looking at houses you know they again in terms of identity they couldn't come to terms they didn't know what was coming right um and they and they didn't want to know what was coming. They were you know wealthy world travelers they'd just come back from trekking in Burma right so this is what they wanted they wanted property they wanted beauty you know animals anyway so looking at houses and my cousin kept calling me saying like the houses they keep wanting to look at are insane Jackie your father in law can't from week to week he can get up less and less stairs and I can't get them to look at something that's one level and so finally they bought the world's worst terrible home um huge home curving stairway no primary on the main no full bath on the main a big deck looking out over a canyon it took stairs to get down to the canyon I mean honestly it was any but anyway it's what they wanted this is what they felt comfortable in it was it was big and it was generous and it had a gourmet kitchen and room for their animals. So by the in the two months it took for them to decide to move find a house and move in he was in a wheelchair and they'd had a chairlift installed because they because he was already having difficulty walking they recognized maybe he'll have trouble getting up the stairs they had a stairlift involved but he was already in a wheelchair by the time they moved in and by three months after that he'd lost his voice and he was in a power wheelchair. He was no longer mobile at all. So we and I and I went down to half time in my administrator role to help care for him. My husband's a teacher so I would sort of do days with my mother in law my husband would do and he and his brother would split evenings and we would all kind of split weekends. So it was it was not slow progressing it was incredibly fast. Yeah yeah and the and so we were taking care of as a family and I was so and the first thing we had to do almost immediately is renovate their bathroom upstairs because he couldn't get into it. We knew he was he was now in a wheelchair it wasn't wheelchair friendly. So I helped run that teaching myself about accessibility working with contractors who were very skilled but weren't coming at it from the lens of accessibility nor were they coming at it from the lens of of predictive analysis of what was going to come next right they didn't know about how did he get upstairs? Chairlift oh the chairlift so we would transfer him from the power chair he'd ride up and we'd transfer him to a manual wheelchair um and then we'd push him around on the thick carpet. It was great um so and then we'd transfer him into their high bed because she didn't want an adjustable bed so so much of it was just this identity piece. She she didn't she wanted him to sleep in bed with her in their regular bed in their regular life right and and we weren't living in regular life anymore. Anyway so so we remodeled this bathroom did this huge very very expensive project it was beautiful about a month later he could no longer use the chairlift because he'd lost torsal control. So then we had to move downstairs but there is no full bathroom downstairs and there's no bedroom downstairs and so it became the next remodeling project and I helped with that as well of again looking at how do we redesign this okay it needs to be a wet room we need to change the orientation we only have limited space you know all these things so we got that done also um and then he had maybe three weeks to a month before he was just permanently in his wheelchair he no longer used that bathroom so we spent and then he died 13 months after his diagnosis so of the 13 months of his life we spent minimum five months in a remodeling project and he was never able to use the end result for more than a month. So at least$80,000 at least five months of his 13 months of life all of this was incredibly hard for us the emotional part the anticipatory grief I'm the trained social worker and so I was sort of like I could put my professional face on and do all these different things but of course it was terribly emotional. It's also for people that haven't encountered ALS it is the most terrible disease it's also very very boring to care for someone with ALS so in between health crises and having to go to the bathroom and like dropping someone when you're trying to transition them like there's all these things that are ridiculous and scary and and sometimes funny but just terrible about what your life becomes with ALS. But in between that you're just sitting around you're not doing anything right um and so my father in law were and I started talking he was using a whiteboard by that point but he was very funny even on a whiteboard um but we started talking and I was like I'm so pissed off that this is what we're doing. I would rather just be focused on you we know what's happening you're obviously not going to live very much longer right it which is awful and so I would rather be being with you than remodeling your bathroom again. Right and I'm so irritated that you guys bought this house and and I get why and and there was nothing that was of the quality they wanted that didn't hit all their buttons about infirmity and mortality that they could just move into. So I said I could do this better. I could make houses it is a crime that houses are built only for people who walk upright and who are apparently five foot eight you know like anyone who's short or anyone who's not walking you know is not supposedly supposed to live in a home apparently in this country. So I said I could do this better. I could build these houses I could sell these houses. So I decided to take so he was like well you should you should take your real estate license you know and I was like all right I guess I should learn about the housing industry because I'm a social worker. So I so while I was caring for him I studied for my test he would help me study for my test um and then he ended up dying um three weeks before COVID hit. So which was itself a blessing we could all be with him in the hospital but then the country shut down the world shut down um and so it wasn't until a year later that I got a reminder that I had to take this test you know to get my license of this thing I studied for and I was like oh my God. So I'm like I better take it because I don't want to study again. Sure. Passed it and then immediately decided you know what this is what I want to do. This is really where my heart is I can blend my social work heart with my creativity and design running a uh mental health clinic that served over 2,000 people and supervising 50 therapists through COVID that was a lot. So I was burnout before then but then I was like really toasty after COVID. I bet so you did so I said to work now are you? I had I kept a private practice for a while a small private practice and I'm not doing it anymore. It just was too much. But but I was able I I joked that I couldn't really go from social work into real estate without something that would appease my ego. My ego was too weak. I needed like a professional do gooder's card which I got from being a social worker and you don't get when you're a realtor you just get like I am a capitalist and I'm here to take your money card which I don't like that card. So so I thought okay this is but this is what I want to do. I want to create this homes I want to help people age in place. I want to help people who get devastating diagnoses not have to remodel their homes all the time like this is what I can do. So I immediately got my senior real estate specialist which helped me with the aging um then I went and got my caps to do the aging place specialist and I started doing free home assessments for seniors in my community and so doing educational talks I I was going to community centers I was connecting with people doing aging fairs hosting aging fairs connecting with all these organizations as well as developing a directory of contractors who I felt comfortable sending into people's homes whether they were whether it was a widowed woman whether it was a trans couple whether it was a BIPOC family like trying to find contractors who didn't feel threatening to them when they came in their home because as you know if you're just googling resources generally what you come up with is a white male contractor you know and there are many wonderful white male contractors But there's a lot of them, and they're not all wonderful. Um, and and even if you are, you know, even as a woman, when you have a contractor come into your home, generally if there's a man in the home, they talk to the man in the home, which is always funny in my family because I am for sure the builder and my husband is not. And I will make the con the call, schedule the call, talk to the contractor, and they come in the door and talk to him. And he's like, What am I, why am I even here? Like you are, you are talking to the wrong person, buddy. Um, so that you know, the layers of that get so much whenever you're from a more marginalized community, that just gets even more scary to enter some, to have someone you don't know enter your home. Anyway, so I was doing all that simultaneously, and then um, and then realized more and more what was really feeding me was doing these home assessments and helping people find a way to stay in their home when they were being told either by the care providers in their life or by their super concerned kids that it wasn't safe, right? And the person was like, Don't I am the parent, I know what's safe, even if they didn't really, but they wanted, they didn't want to be taken care of. Um, and it felt scary to leave. They didn't want to leave, they had their friends, they had their book clubs, and so every time I was able to go into someone's home and help find a way for them to stay, it was just so incredibly fulfilling for me. Um, and that really, I thought this is what I wanted, this is where I want to put my energy, and and this is really fulfilling this this the reason I started this of helping people be in their homes easily and helping create homes that really that aged with them across their whole spectrum of life, from being a young family with young children to being 85 and you know, or or having a devastating diagnosis and being in a wheelchair, whatever it was, having homes that could do all that with them seamlessly. Yeah. And then at the end of 2023, um, a friend of mine, she was really trying, she was also a realtor, still is a realtor. She was really wanting to, she'd been working in affordable housing and similar to me, really wanted to be in affordable housing, but was a realtor, didn't have the credential. And I said, you know what, let's just do this. We're just gonna make our own houses that people can afford that are totally accessible. And everything happened super quickly. We're like, oh, that sounds like a fun idea. And then I was approached by Rogue Valley because they saw me on LinkedIn and said, Hey, would you bring this certification up to Portland? And I was like, uh, I don't even have a logo. So uh like, sure, give me five minutes to file with this business license. Yeah. Um, but that happened. We've we had an investor come forward and say, Hey, I want to invest some money. Do you have a piece of land we can buy? We found a piece of land, someone bought it that we could develop and create our own homes on. We had an architect we worked with that I worked with through Neri. Um, she's like, Hey, I'm in it's so weird, Jackie. I'm getting really interested in designing accessible homes. Do you know anyone I could work with? And I was like, Oh, um, yes, I do want you. And she's like, I don't even need you to pay me right now, I just want the experience. So, like the whole universe came together and it's like, this. This is the same thing. The star is along the stars along completely. And it was hilarious the first six months. It was literally like we'd be called into a meeting and someone's like, Hey, I heard about what you guys are doing. Can you certify this 16-unit luxury condos? And we're like, Absolutely, a hundred percent. We'll get you a proposal, and then I'm in Canva trying to like create a proposal for you know, like ridiculous, a lot of smoke and mirrors at the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Um, like most businesses, like most businesses, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

That looks real good.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

We're super professional.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

Yeah, well, so that's how Livable Home started, right? Your company, yeah. So who content like what what clients are you looking for? Who do you want to attract to get to call you? And how do they well?

Who Actually Hires: Builders And Sandwich Generation

SPEAKER_00 43:57

It was so interesting because that sort of changed over time, right? We thought because I had been doing assessments for people wanting to stay home, my assumption was that I mean, that's our demographic. That's who needs the services, that's who would been asking me for the services. Um and then as we started rolling out livable homes and really understanding our business model of knowing, and then we had the certification, which was different from our business and we incorporate it into our business. We're like, oh, this is all really seamless. Suddenly we realized the people who for sure do not want to talk to us off the bat and pay us for our services are the people who want to stay in their homes. Like suddenly that became not our demographic because those were the last people who wanted to talk. We would host conversations, nobody would come, right? Nobody wants to talk about aging in place. But who wanted to talk about it was their kids, was the sandwich generation. Right. And and we started getting a lot of interest in builders and remodelers from builders and remodelers. And so we really started shifting that messaging to realtors and to um builders and sandwich generation. And as we shifted that, we started seeing like, okay, here's the traction, here's who has who has enough emotion involved or enough economic savvy involved to understand, hey there's a market here that we need to build for, and I want my parents, I don't know how to take care of my parents because I'm still parenting and I'm super busy and I have two jobs, but they continue to age, and oh my god, what do I do? Right. Sure. Um and we realized that how we could get the homeowners, the aging homeowners to talk to us was if we came in to talk, if we were invited to speak to them through very trusted organizations like a church or like their senior center, like a caregiver support group. And if we could come in that way, then they were so grateful. They were so happy to hear us. But it was that what we hadn't, the connection we hadn't made is that, you know, when you hit when you when you hit this age, when you're post-retirement age, all of a sudden everybody, it you there's all these predatory businesses that sort of descend upon you, right? And trying to sell you things and make you scared of life.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Um, and the approach we were taking was hitting that nerve of where you're trying to take advantage of us and sell us something. So if we can come in through a church or something where they already know they're safe, they're taking care of, no one's trying to hurt them, then they're like, Oh, yeah, I do need this. And you are someone who I could trust with all these emotions and all these fears that I'm having. Um, so that's where we are.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

Did you shift your um because I always think that instead of selling, I think educating is really the thing. Just educate. And then if they're interested, if they're able, cable, whatever, then they will come to you to buy. Or at the very least, they have your name in their Rolodex.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

You know, and we had we had never done a sales y approach, but the way we were presenting it sounded like it was going to be. So we'd be like, this isn't a sales pitch, but it was, how do we help you age in place? You know, anyway, it felt like one. Yeah. So now what we're doing is more, you know, we talk about it as how do we help people make the decision of should I stay or should I go? So that's kind of what it's called now. Should I stay or should I go? And then what we do is we say, we're gonna come in and host a conversation with your friends and neighbors about the realities of where you are right now. How do you make this? What resources do you need to make the decision of should you stay or should you go? And so then we bring in a ton of resources and and how do you make the decision and who is in your community that can help you, organizers, declutterers, builders, contractors, like CPAs, financial advisors, who are the people that are part of this conversation and who do you want to be connected with? And most of it isn't, I mean, I tell stories because that's what I'm good at is telling stories, but most of it is them sharing stories of someone saying, like, oh, well, you like someone will say, Well, what how do you choose a rehab facility? And I was like, Well, do you choose? I don't know, you go wherever the discharge planner sends you mostly. And someone else was like, Well, I was told my husband's in the hospital right now. I they gave me a list of places, and so we've been visiting those places, and then someone else will speak up and go, Oh, yeah, I had that list too. And I chose a place and then they still sent me to the first bed, right? And so it was that reality of like you're living in it. Here's the people who are like, that's what they're gonna tell you. This is what's gonna happen, right? And then this is what it's like to sit in your house and look around and know, like, they may never send him home because I need modifications and I don't even know what to do. They've told me I need the modifications, they've come to look at my home, but how do I get them?

SPEAKER_02 48:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

Who's supposed to do this next step, right?

Caregiver-Informed Construction Details That Matter

SPEAKER_02 48:53

Right, right. What's the next step? And that's the question. Not only the homeowners, but the family as well, the kids. They don't know either because they're not in that group, you know, they haven't gone through that process, even though to some extent, if they have children, they have gone through that process. You know, like you were saying before, making your home safer for your kids, it's the exact same thing. I mean, yeah, well, not exactly, but the I the concept is the same. How do you make the home safer or how do you make it accessible? Maybe safer isn't the right word. How do you make it accessible so that so when you know the the person can come back and do what they need to do with whatever ability they have or whatever tool new tools that they're using? No sense in going with a walker if you can't get through the door to get into the bathroom. I mean, what's the point of that? So but you you you're so right in everything you're doing. I mean, I can't I think I think you guys are gonna be nationwide very soon because that certification, one gives the you that sense of authority. But uh the other thought that I had is that while you know what you said before about instead of doing a lot of talking, let the group do the talking because I hope that you're taking those questions and those problems and putting that maybe in your newsletter or putting that in your uh articles or LinkedIn or I don't know, YouTube, whatever it is that you're doing, because obviously if these people are asking those questions, others uh excuse me, are too. And that's a great way to get even more attraction, more attention to your business. But the other thing I was thinking while you were sit talking was that um coming in with those resources, coming in with the group, I think it's so important. And I tell everyone in the in the directory, create that team for yourself because even if you can't do whatever, you know, you have someone on your team, you know, that can, or you know someone who can, because then that makes you the authority that they will always call. Yes. You know, oh call Jackie. She knows, you know, who can do a reverse mortgage, she knows who can do uh outdoor ramps, you know, whatever. Um whatever it is, new lighting, I don't know, whatever. It's that makes you the person that they um trust because they've met you now, they've shook your hands. And you know, I'm I'm a senior in in that retirement generation. And although I get a lot, you know, I do a lot online and everything, I still when it comes to the actual work, I still like to physically meet the person. Yes, yeah, and like like you said, get I mean, my contractor's a female, and I like that because being alone, it just feels safer to have her in here and you know, versus a lot of other you don't know, you just don't know.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

You don't know, and that's what we tell. So one of the things that we that I love that we're able to do. So we have um, you know, we have three contractors that we generally refer to, and people and often people have their own, which is fantastic also. But we have these three contractors, and they're people that I know personally, they're people that not only have their caps, but all have experience caregiving. And I specifically vetted them for that because it's one thing to have the training, um, this and the specialized training with safety modifications, but unless you have experience being a caregiver, you will never know why a two-inch threshold completely derails your plans for getting into a house, right?

SPEAKER_02 52:44

It's very true because it's the stories of being a caregiver, it's the stories that you remember. Um, you know, this patient couldn't get into the bathroom because the wheelchair wouldn't go over that threshold, or this patient couldn't get up the front steps, or whatever. You know, it's the stories. You're right.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

It's the stories, and if the contractor doesn't understand how important that is, we see it all the time. Everybody sees it all the time in the building world. Yeah, you know, you say you want this, and a subcontractor comes in and puts in a one-inch threshold because what does it matter? It's not that big of a deal, and suddenly the door is built and everything's framed, and you're like, oh crap, I have a one-inch threshold. I this was supposed to be a no-step entry, and there's a one-inch threshold, so now what do I do? Right. So then we'll say, Okay, you're not gonna redo your doorway, right? Because you still don't because the builder's like, it'll sell, which it will, obviously. Yeah. So then we come in and we're like, okay, well, we have angled wedge mats and we can we can correct for that distance, and that's fine, we can make that work. But but none of that was necessary because they already poured a concrete ramp up to the door and then put in a one-inch threshold, right? We're like, oh um, and it's frustrating for the contractors, it's frustrating, you know, we're like, you need to put your outlets at this level. And the contractors are like, yep, they're all at 14 inches. We're like, oh my God, no, it said 18, right? And now the walls are drywalled and it's$400 an outlet to change it. No one's changing the outlets at this point, right? Right, right. So the certification, when we can get in with the builder, and when we build with someone who has caregiving experience, who understands this is important, then all of a sudden we're able to really um to provide them with the with the specifics of what they need to make it accessible, like here, and they're building codes. We didn't make up building codes, these are like ANSI type A building codes. Um, we just they're just compiled in the certification with a bunch of universal design sprinkled on top, right? Which is not in the building codes, but just makes life better. Um, but when we're able to say follow this list, and you need to have people working on this who understand the consequences of you not following this list, then all of a sudden we have a project that really the the result is something that is truly accessible, right? Without a bunch of headache, and I mean there's always headache, but a bunch of headache that can't be undone. Right. Um and it's those expensive things, you know. Uh you know, people get 36-inch doorways. If they're gonna build that, they're gonna build that, right? They're not gonna build a 35-inch doorway because no door fits that. Um but it's these little, it's these little things, it's thresholds, it's where's the thermostat, it's you know, all these other things that don't seem to matter if you don't understand why it matters.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

Right. It's the right, it's the everyday things. And um, I mean, I just had my kitchen remodeled and there were some, you know, some problems in there that the contractor didn't um, she used a different contractor for the kitchen. And um yeah, I mean, it's just the little things that you have to do every day, like like you know, reaching for the the garbage disposal. If you have to reach too far, or if you have to walk around to do it, then that it just doesn't make sense. Why not move it close? I mean, just dumb little things that have to be fixed. And yeah, there's always a problem when you're remodeling. I mean, you know, I always say you never know what's gonna happen until the hammer hits the wall, and you know, you don't know what's behind that wall. And you know, it's like, well, we, you know, we need this. It's yeah, it's like, yeah, okay, you know, you budget for that. But um, but you you're I mean, I I think what you're doing is amazing. I think that the people in Portland or the area, how far out do you go?

SPEAKER_00 56:45

Um, as far as we go all through Oregon. Um you know, we have so Southern Oregon, we have the two counties, Josephine and Jackson County in Oregon. Rogue Valley has kept those. They they have their lifelong housing certification and they only have one person, this woman, Connie, who's fantastic. Um, but she only works eight hours a week, and she would very much like to retire. She is past her retirement age, and she's only stayed because there's no one else doing this program. Wow. Um, so they have Josephine Jackson County, we have the rest of Oregon up into Southwest Washington, and we're working on getting all of Washington. It's dependent upon the MLS system because that's where we have to get the certification. So we work a lot with those managing boards. And in Oregon, I don't know if this is true in other, I think this, I know this is true in California, in other states. There's like five different MLS systems in Oregon, which is preposterous. Yes. And you have to belong to each one, and each one looks different. Um, so completely ridiculous. And so we're like, okay, we got two, now we need three. Oh, we need the coast, that's a different one. So we're like slowly getting in everywhere. Um couldn't make things more difficult.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

I um like why I uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:01

But it's that that's what sells for the builders because they want to market these, and we can tell them the economic value of building this way. We can tell them that five million people purchased homes last year, two and a half or 1.75 million of those either purchased specifically for multi-generational or they were 65 and older, and 10% of homes in the US are aging ready. Like, okay, so 1.5 million homes purchased last year, needed modification, and didn't have them. Yeah, build the house, build the house, right? People are buying the house.

SPEAKER_02 58:34

Yeah, add to that conversation that 10,000 people a day are turning 65 every day for years, years and years and years to come. So look, if they want to be, if they want to sell to the demographic that has the funds and that is looking, then they need to get on board with that. Where do you see the niche of aging in place going? Where do you see that? Like I think aging and I think this niche is in the Model T era of development. You know, it's like just starting. I mean, it's been around for a long time, but it hasn't quite grabbed attention or traction or whatever. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 59:17

I'm seeing it change as I'm involved in advocacy at like state, local, city levels. So where I'm seeing it changing in terms of attention to uh bonuses, incentives to builders is a lot in this intersection of affordability and accessibility. So affordable housing has federal mandates of how many things have to be accessible, and those are ADA accessible, right? ADA is not a residential requirement, commerce building requirement.

SPEAKER_03 59:43

Right.

Market Demand, Demographics, And Builder Economics

SPEAKER_00 59:43

And so what I'm seeing is knowledge and understanding around we need to more people need people need to be using all the things that we're building, right? There's not enough housing, and then if we only build housing for people who walk on two legs, then that's the only person that can use it. Right, everyone else it's hard to use, and if we build housing that's ADA, then the only person comfortable using that property is someone in a wheelchair, right? So, why are we doing that? Why are we not building everything so everybody can use it? It's ridiculous, right? So, I'm watching this happen. I'm I'm seeing legislation pass that talks about we will give you X amount of land use, you know, we'll ease up on land use restrictions if you build more to type A accessibility, which is not ADA, which is very, very, very reassuring. I'm seeing a lot more movement understanding that, you know, out here in Oregon, we have a lot of um progressive ADU auxiliary dwelling units being built. And around you can you can build them, you can sell the land on them. There's lots of different things, and and that's that's city to city, county to county sometimes. So we're seeing state recognition of that as if you're gonna build these units, you need to build some of them. The state is saying you have to build some of them accessibly, visitably. Someone needs to be able to come in. We are saying, you know who's building ADUs and who has the because building costs are very expensive. It's active retirees who want to stick an ADU on their kids' property or on their own property so that they can keep traveling the world and have a place to come back to. They don't need this massive house anymore, but they sure aren't gonna live in a crappy single-level home, right? So if they can build a really beautiful ADU that's environmentally sustainable, that's light, has big windows, all the wood, all the Pacific Northwest, you know, aesthetic, and then they can go off and do whatever they want to do, live wherever else they live half the year, and they can afford it, right? Um, so we're seeing a lot of that in terms of aging in place. I think that's a big direction. There's the trend of uh multi-generational living, which really tanked in the 80s, and we've seen it slowly climb and then it shot back up during COVID. It's just it's plateauing, right? And I think it will continue to grow as people see the economic reality of the economic benefits of combining families and what that means to combine care, um, and what it means for for the for the older generation to be like, maybe they don't want to babysit. I mean my parents don't want to babysit all the time. You know, it isn't like they want to be there to provide child care, but there's an awareness that, like, oh, I do want to help my kids out economically, and also if I have a skiing accident in my 6,000 square foot home on the hill, you know, that's a lot, that's a hassle for me. So I think that that's really the direction I see it of this understanding of if we want to house our people in this country, and if we want to house in general, there's not enough houses that anyone can access. If we want to house the most vulnerable members of our community, which some of us do, um a demographic within vulnerability is people who are aging. So some people can afford to create what they want to create, most people really can't, and more than that, most people don't understand what that is. They believe the option is stay in my home or move out of my home to a senior community. If we can come in with that middle choice of you can stay in your home and you can create a home that you can live in for as long as you choose, yeah. Protecting choice, protecting independence, and protecting resale value so that when it is time to go, they have a home that everyone else wants as well. And they're not sacrificing economically in order to stay in their home.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

Exactly. Exactly. And let's not forget, not just, I mean, aging in place or you know, um, having an accessible home is not just about the physical things that you do in the house, it's also about the community, the socialization that you have. So that whole multi-generation type of housing really helps to build that. I mean, you know, working in geriatrics, and then my mom-in-law lived to 102. Um, and you know, I I have a lot of friends who are much older, 80s, and and they will always say the best times in their lives were when their kids were younger and they had all this activity in the house and things going on and holidays and all of that. And that continues when you're in a multi-generational home, um, you know, versus a lot of others. So there's so many social factors that I think are so important to put in that. Um, and I don't know about you, I just interviewed someone the other day who opened the company for co-housing. It's co-life uhforseniors.com. I think that's what it is. And basically his job is to find someone who can come in and live in your home and do whatever it is you need to do, you know, driving or taking care of the house or taking care of you or whatever, um, for either rent-free or very low rent. Um, and he says that they're it's working out quite well for the seniors that are in their group or in their membership or however that works. Um I I think that's another option, that golden girl type of scenario where you can stay in your home as long as it's a safe home or accessible home to be in. So many cool things to do.

Policy Trends, ADUs, And Multigenerational Living

SPEAKER_00 1:05:23

And we have a program out here that that is national. Home share does that. We have Home Share Oregon. The Home Share matches people to come in and stay for a cheaper rent. Um we see that uh again, and one of the coolest example, not the coolest example, a fun example that happened this summer. So we have um the Home Builders Association does Street of Dreams out here. I don't know if they do that everywhere, but where they have all these fancy, fancy homes, and then you can go and tour them. And it's very exciting and very fun. And you know, it's all dreaminess because who can afford them? But one of the things they started doing is not just having the fancy, fancy homes, but also having homes, they have those for sure, but also having homes that showcase something like middle housing or one on this year's tour was built by students out in a rural community. Um, so they do different things, which is great. So, one of the homes, there was one home on the tour this year that was built as multi-generational living, and it was the only home on the tour. The designer of that called us in to consult on the they she called it the in-law quarters. Um, the designer of the home was actually designing it for her family. Her family was going to live there for generations, and they owned the building company that built it. So they didn't talk about that during the Street of Dreams because she was there all the time. That would have been weird, but people were actually in her home, right? The furniture was the furniture for her home, the bedroom for her granddaughter was for her granddaughter. Um, and the in-law quarters were was for her mother, who was moving out from the Midwest. And so she had us come in, and this home, had it gone to market, would have sold for about$10 million. It was the most beautiful, the most beautiful home I've ever seen in my entire life. Absolutely gorgeous. And they, because it was being built for four generations, you know, the generations three and four were downstairs, the daughter and granddaughter, and then the the designer and then her mother were on the upstairs. Um, and there's an elevator and all these things. So we come in, that she's like, Hey, I've heard about you guys. Can you come in and consult on this home? Because my mom's gonna move in here and I want to make sure, and she's an incredible designer. She'll she'll want to make sure I've done things right. So we go in the home. The first thing we see in this gorgeous wet room that's been done. I mean, it's it's stunning, Esther. It was just really a lot. Um, we come in and say, Where are the grab bars? And she goes, Oh, my mom said no grab bars. We put in blocking though, and I was like, Okay, well, we're putting in grab bars because blocking doesn't help you when you fall. So you are creating this apartment for your mother so that she will be safe. We're putting in grab bars, and so we had some suggestions. She took those to her designer that to her um fixture people that she uses, and they're like, We're not putting those in a$10 million home, which is wonderful because we were then introduced to the world of super rich high-end safety fixtures, which I didn't know existed. Um, turns out you can spend, you know,$600 on a toilet paper grab bar holder, or you can get Delta for$150. Um but but we did this whole thing, and then we went through the rest of the house because it was four generations, and we were able to really affirm for her like so much of the decisions she made were not made from a universal design lens, from an accessibility lens. It was from a common sense lens.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:40

And we were able to say, like, yes, you made this decision because it just makes sense. Also, universal design. You rounded the countertops in the island downstairs so your three-year-old granddaughter wouldn't hit her head. Also, you're not gonna hit your hip. Right. You made this big wet room so that you could have room to corral these children and bathe them and they could walk around. Also, universal design if someone's in a wheelchair. So it was very enlightening for her. We were able to get grab bars in, they're gorgeous. I can really the tour is six weeks. We were there a lot, and people would come through and say, I thought this was accessible. We had our big can grab bars be sexy banner, and we're talking about stuff. And they're like, I didn't see there was grab bars in this home. We're like, No, you didn't, did you? Go back through, right? Do you think this home looks like a hospital? It sure doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:31

It's the nicest home you'll ever see. I love to see pictures.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:34

I would love and then the mother moved in, Esther, and she said, I thought you were gonna put grab bars in.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:40

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:41

And we're like, Yes, we did it. So just so fun and and really exciting to see the interest that that generated of you can do this beautifully, like no one's doing it on a$10 million scale every day, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:58

But you can, right, you know, right. The the point is it's out there, it's starting, and then I think that eventually it's going to become more affordable, it's gonna become more mainstream, just like anything else. It's yeah, and then it starts. So I I love that idea. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

So I think that's the future. I think people will see just like lever handles made the jump from hospitals and restaurants to homes, yeah. Cool sexy grab bars are gonna make the jump from like nursing homes to everyday homes. Um, and as people see that their friends need that, and it's easier for a friend to visit your home if they can actually get up off the toilet, um, you know, that it's that it has nothing to do, it has something to do with aging. It has everything to do with being human and having bodies that break, right? And let us down sometimes. And that's really what we're talking about with universal design and why we can take it out of that conversation specifically around aging in place, because it's just about being human and needing and wanting your home to work with you no matter what your body decides to do on a given day. I love that tagline.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:03

Yeah, I think that's your book.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

That's my book. Well, now you've shown me how to write the book, so that's very fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:12

Yeah, I mean, it's it's easy. You ever need any help with AI, just give me a call. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:17

Boy, I may because I do.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:19

So I love I took courses on prompt engineering and uh gentig AI, and I love doing it. I mean, I I get my geek on with all that stuff. It's just it's just amazing. And uh the other the other side of aging in place, I think, is also the smart home integration. You know, all the things that Alexa and all the other programs can do nowadays, it's just it's going to be wow. You know, I sometimes I wish I was younger so that I could live longer to see all this stuff. But then other times I'm like, no, I'm okay. I'm okay. I like the freedom that being in your 60s gives you. It's just like, you know, I don't know, there's just this sense of incredible freedom. It's like, yeah, anyway. Oh, so how can people get a hold of you? Obviously, through the website, Livable.

High-End Proof: Luxury That Hides Accessibility

SPEAKER_00 1:12:15

Through the website, um, Livable Livablehomes.org. Um, through the website, you can schedule directly with us. Um, my phone number is the one that's everywhere. So if you want to, you know, spam me or prank call me or actually schedule an appointment and talk about accessibility, that's me. Um yeah, and so so through that, we are always willing to come out. We can do virtual assessments anywhere in the country right now, as well as in person. All we need is someone on the other end with FaceTime or Zoom and a measuring tape, and we will do a full assessment and we can do all of that. So the more that people bring us into their homes and we connect just like you do with the aging and place directory, we work to connect with where you, if you are you in Boston, are you in Texas, you know, whoever, wherever you are, um, we can be there. And as we roll out the certification, as we begin to get traction, then that will be available as well. But it's always something to ask for. If you're working with your local, you know, governments and saying we want this, or your local builders, we can help make it happen in your community, which is wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:19

Right. That is so awesome. Jackie, thank you so much, so much. I'm gonna be putting this on two podcasts and two YouTube channels. I'm gonna edit it. I'm gonna put your um website at the bottom so people can always see it throughout the entire thing. Um, and then, of course, information, and then I'm gonna write an article as well, put it on the website, and then at some point I'm going through the list of all the members of the directory and highlighting them, sending out a highlight, you know, member thing every Monday. So I'm gonna market you as much as I can.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:53

Well, we are lucky to have you, both for what you're doing for the community and what you're doing for our marketing, which would be fantastic. Also, I'm going to have you as my personal tutor on AI and Oh, yes, call me in time.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:06

Call me in time. In fact, at 145 today, I'm actually tutoring someone on how to do Pinterest and how to go through that whole process. And um, so we're working on that. That is the number one source of traffic for me is Pinterest. Really? Yeah. You wouldn't think it, right? But it's the, as you said, it's the families that are on there. The sandwich generation is on there. And if you target them, then that is, I don't know, but that's where I'm getting a lot of traffic. That and what's building now is AI. Chad and Copilot and Gemini, those are now starting to bring in more. Um, so yeah, Pinterest.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:47

Oh, I want to talk to you about Pinterest then, because that wouldn't have occurred to me. All far as I know, it's only for me to choose my back my tile backsplash.

unknown 1:14:56

I know.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:58

And I have never used Pinterest because to me, it's just so confusing. And so many times you get on something, you're like, oh, that recipe looks amazing. And you click on it and nothing. And you're like, so what's the point? But if you do it right, it's um, yeah, it and it's not that hard. You just need a little system. So that's what I'm doing. I'm gonna show them my system. So yeah, maybe I'll do a webinar on that. Oh, I would love that. All right, beautiful. Thank you so much. Enjoy beautiful Oregon, you lucky, lucky girl.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:29

We'll talk soon. Thank you so much for having me, Esther. I just feel really honored. So I look forward to working together more and doing this work, spreading the word. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Jackie. I'll talk to you later. Okay, bye bye. Bye, ciao.