Living with you Parents Again, but Under Your Roof
Aging sneaks up on most of us. Is your home ready for someone in their Golden Years? Start with your home’s “most dangerous room”
When Cathy Gallub’s mother died in 2012, it didn’t take long to realize her wheelchair-bound, 92-year-old father could no longer live alone in his home in Oceanside, New York. She started looking into the possibility of converting the lower level of her raised ranch home into an ADA-compliant apartment where he could live. Then Superstorm Sandy hit. Recovery and rebuilding efforts made it nearly impossible to find a contractor to do the work on her home. For nearly a year, Gallub tried to keep her father happy and comfortable in his own home.
“I was running back and forth between houses and cooking for him every night — the entire family felt the stress.”
Gallub is hardly alone in facing the challenges of caring for an aging parent. According to a survey by AARP, 78 percent of people aged 65 and older want to stay in their current residence as long as possible, also known as aging in place.
With more than 30 years of experience in home renovations, Dan Bawden, president and CEO of Legal Eagle Contractors in Houston, understands the challenges of making a family home safe and livable for seniors. In 2001, with a team of remodeling contractors and members of the National Association of Home Builders, Bawden created the Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist (CAPS) 
certification, a program designed to teach best practices for aging-in-place renovations.
