I had been living in a home that was not safe or healthy for me or anyone else to be living in. If it weren’t for AHIP, I don’t know where I would be living today. Now I can go to bed at night and have a good night’s sleep. No more rain coming in or floors falling in.”
— Helen M., age 85
I couldn’t afford to pay someone to do all of the work. Now I have less stress of breakdowns, and am not worried about running water and rotting floors. Without AHIP, I would probably be in a nursing home.”
— William S., age 83
Everyone deserves to be safe at home.
AHIP aims to serve as many people as possible given our limited resources and persistent local need. We try to reach our most vulnerable residents first—seniors, children, individuals with disabilities, and those with very low or fixed incomes.
Learn more about our emergency repair program, rehab program, and energy retrofit program.
Alice’s home was built in 1925 and needed various modernizations and senior‐friendly retrofits. Her family first called us in 2015 because she had fallen several times trying to get up and down her stairs. We installed a chairlift with emergency repair funds and then added her to our target-area community development project list for additional needed rehab work. Alice gets by on Social Security, which puts her at 25 percent of the area median income.
Our Seniors Safe at Home effort encompasses our critical rehab efforts to address specific needs of our clients 62 and older. More than half of the clients we serve each year are seniors, and we do our best to keep our elderly residents safe, preserve their independence, and protect their housing.
Typical repair work for seniors includes:
- handicap ramps
- chairlifts
- grab bars and other bathroom retrofits
- leaking roofs
- well and well pump emergencies
Watch this video to see Children Safe at Home in action.
Our Children Safe at Home program is an integral part of our critical repair services that focuses on the safety and well-being of client households with children and youth ages 18 and under.
Research confirms what we intuitively know: kids do better when their homes are safe and sound. Housing quality matters, and it matters a lot—for children’s emotional and behavioral well-being today and for their long-term economic success and stability tomorrow. Our kids deserve safe and decent housing—a stable and secure place to launch from each morning and return to each night.
Watch this video to see Seniors Safe at Home in action.
AHIP’s Neighbors Safe at Home initiative encompasses our community development activities. Our public-private target-area efforts focus on revitalizing whole neighborhoods in order to amplify our impact, strengthen and protect underserved and gentrifying neighborhoods, and attract more vigorous partnerships.
Since 2012, we have worked in the neighborhoods of:
10th & Page, Charlottesville (40 homes)
Orchard Acres, Crozet (26 homes)
Orangedale & Prospect, Charlottesville (in progress; goal: 40 homes)
Alberene, southern Albemarle (in progress; goal: 29 homes)
Belmont, Charlottesville (currently in planning; 70 families on waitlist)