RT-AFF Builds Ramps to help People with Disabilities Remain in Their Homes

Ramps are critical to help many homeowners with disabilities safely enter and exit their homes. RT-AFF volunteers and staff have built five ramps since July 2021. Some of the homeowners we’ve helped were unable to get out of their homes for critical medical appointments without assistance from first responders or very strong friends to lift them. Other homeowners risked falling each time they left their home, so they became isolated.

The ramps we build allow homeowners to leave their homes safely and without fear. Ramps allow them to make more trips to get medical care, make more choices in their daily activities, reconnect with family and friends and safely age in place.

Each ramp requires a lot of planning and design. We take into consideration the specific point of entry to the home, space limitations, the slope of the property, and the maximum slope allowable for ramps.

Some ramps are fairly simple, like the one we built for Daniel in Fairfax (pictured above). Materials cost about $250 and a team of four volunteers spent about 19 hours on the design, buying and delivering materials, and building the ramp.

In contrast, Angela lives in a mobile home in Alexandria. The front door of her home is elevated 30” above the sidewalk. Materials for her ramp cost close to $1,500 and our team spent about 150 hours designing and constructing the ramp (pictured above).

Thanh’s ramp at his home in Falls Church was built inside an enclosed porch with a concrete floor, so our team didn’t have to dig footers and pour concrete. Still, planning and building the ramp and repairing the walkway from the ramp to the front of the home took about 120 hours. Thanh and his wife are extremely happy to have safe access to their home.

Our volunteers love the teamwork and camaraderie of working together to build ramps and make other accessibility modifications and repairs. Our volunteers, donors and partners make all this work possible so homeowners in need can live safely in their own homes.

Visit our Flickr to see more photos of our ramp projects and other repairs and modifications we’ve made to help homeowners in need.