If seeking a place that accommodates mobility impairments, one has to get creative. For one Vermonter, that meant turning to social media: Jill Allen put together the facebook page "Find Jill A Home In Vermont", to do just that, but also to raise awareness about the lack of affordable accessible housing.
Allen uses a wheelchair because of congenital cerebral palsy and lives on a fixed income. She has dwelled in apartments owned by housing authorities for most of her adult life. “I don’t like the fluctuating rent and constant reassessment of my finances,” she said. Housing authorities will assess her income annually to fix her housing costs at 30% of her income.
Wheel Pad L3C is a Vermont company that manufactures accessible home attachments and accessory dwelling units, which can rapidly transform any property into a safe and cozy place for people with mobility challenges. “All our units have an universally accessible bedroom and bathroom, and we use the ADA as the absolute minimum standard,” said Joseph Cincotta, Wheel Pad’s inventor and principal architect. “We aim to create a space that offers individuals with mobility issues the maximum amount of autonomy, dignity, and independence as possible.”
A Wheel Pad™ accessible modular home installed in Vermont. A versatile Wheel Pad housing unit can be a standalone, a home addition, or a mobile tiny home.
Allen, like many Vermonters with disabilities, has a low income, so her borrowing power is low. When she met with RJ Adler, Wheel Pad’s Director of Growth, to learn more about the company’s products, he shared some exciting news:
“The fund offers to help Vermonters finance many different kinds of accessibility equipment, technology, and even home renovations. We saw financing Wheel Pad products as a natural fit with OCU,” Senior Lending Manager Tim Carpenter of the Winooski-based credit union said, “Because Wheel Pad commits to buying back their units when a family is finished with them, and finding a new family to use it, we felt comfortable expanding the fund to cover Wheel Pad’s products and their installation.”
The financing is the final piece of the puzzle for Allen and many other Vermonters. “Crafting the right financing program took some time because Wheel Pad is a new kind of product,” said RJ Adler, Director of Growth at Wheel Pad. “Depending on how you look at it, it could be a home, a renovation, an RV, a travel trailer, or something else. Lending institutions are used to financing all those things, but not something that potentially falls into each of those buckets.” Adler said.
So If Allen got a Wheel Pad home attachment, where could she put it? She currently shares a housing authority apartment with her sister. Ideally, Allen would like to live in a Wheel Pad home unit anywhere in Vermont, connected to a house, preferably close to her sister. One way Allen could connect a Wheel Pad unit to a home would be by finding an Adult Family Care Home (AFCH). AFCH uses Medicaid dollars to place people like Allen, who need a nursing-home level of care, at a non-medical home in the community with care provided by her homesharer instead of in a facility. Allen lived in such a facility for eleven years and hopes never to repeat the experience because being in the facility wasn’t the right fit for her. In Allen’s current situation, she recruits, hires, and trains her aides herself, without outside help, “I’ve been managing my own care for over twenty years, and I’m tired,” she sighs. An AFCH match would provide Jill with the long-term supports of a steady caregiver, a generous yearly stipend for said caregiver, the ability to join another family unit, ongoing case management, and respite support. The one thing AFCH currently doesn’t fund, however, is modifications to a home. However, if Allen were to buy a Wheel Pad home attachment through financing with Opportunities Credit Union, it would lessen the cost of renovations for the homesharer because the modifications are already built in.
“I wouldn’t call this a typical search for a home.” Allen said, “But I’m getting creative. I just hope that if I can help forge this path, that it will be easier for the next person who uses a wheelchair. It’s not a sure thing by any means, but it’s a good idea, and good ideas have to start somewhere!”
Do you have a home to which Allen could connect a Wheel Pad home attachment? Reach out to her on her Facebook page, or contact RJ Adler at (802)458-7194 or RJ@wheelpad.com. To learn more about the Independence Fund and other assistive technology financing, including vehicle or home modifications, contact Tim Carpenter, OCU’s Senior Lending Manager at tcarpenter@oppsvt.org.