Paul Furtaw is the owner and sole proprietor of a small service business called Home Remedies. The goal of Home Remedies has always been to facilitate the homecoming of recovering patients through the modification of the home environment. As a licensed contractor, I install ramps and grab bars along with other assistive devices to allow seniors to age in place. For the past 13 years, Home Remedies has averaged three hundred families a year visited. Helping the frail and elderly remain living in their own home has made clear how strong the desire is to live independent.
As a for profit business, Home Remedies can point to a successful collaborative history with the Ventura County Area Agency on Aging and other local cities, to provide funding for home modification vouchers. Home Remedies has developed teaching materials and has used them in lectures at senior centers and private organizations. Paul Furtaw is the author of the booklet "Making the Transition to Home: simple modifications to encourage independent living" Take a look at my history page.
Many times over the years I have heard the comment "I did not know a service like this existed" No one knew where to send families for help making simple home modifications. The medical community did not feel comfortable referring their patients to just anybody. Community centers all say they need a local resource to better serve all the seniors in this aging population. I had to ask myself "Why are there no more people like me"? Looking at this from a business point of view, it is easy to understand all the hurdles to being successful. Under pressure to grow, I looked at working more hours, hiring staff or selling franchises. None of which I liked. I finally had to ask myself, "How can I develop more people like me"?
Teaching was the next logical step to serve the greater need. The business model that Home Remedies has developed into over the years can be replicated in other communities, by a local provider. Paul Furtaw is in process of developing a new Non Profit agency for the purpose of making a teaching program available.
I have learned over the years that the greatest barrier to independent living is a lack of responsible service people who would have a level of trust and expertise to offer specific home modifications. Without the trust of the Discharge Planner, or the trust of the Case Manager, or caregivers everywhere, they would not refer clients to them on a confident and consistent basis. The community would simply not trust enough to refer to that service. Developing that trust means proper credentials, a business plan, and some training. The Home Remedies Project is about sharing a public/private collaboration that brings together training, public or private funding, and the private sector for the benefit of the baby boomers.
How do we begin?Development of the nonprofit agency has begun. The "Home Remedies Project" should be ready to seek private and public funding by 07/2012.
The Home Remedies Project will start with a book outlining the goals and requirements of the program. Given wide distribution, the book will show how to identify a local participant, and the total financial obligation of the local funding organization. Public/private collaborations will be explored. Participating in the Home Remedies Project would allow consistency of services across the state (and beyond) and become a reliable resource that other community service providers locally would feel comfortable referring to. This project would be a direct benefit to our aging population.
After a two day training period has been completed, that participant could return to their local community and offer vouchers for services as a graduate of the program. The curriculum will include business practices, construction methods, ethics, marketing of services and grant writing. This will be developed based on the current Home Remedies model. A uniform funding application and letter of intent are included as well as media materials announcing the coming service.
Liability insurance is a big issue and a source for group coverage to the participants is also in process. Underwriting a policy for a new class of service providers can make insurance uniform and easier to obtain. The Home Remedies Project could help develop a new stand alone business complete with training and a funding stream to supply services that would allow seniors to live independently longer in their own homes. Participants would have to meet minimum requirements to ensure a level of responsibility. These requirements would be consistent among all the participants as an insurance standard.
Each community could develop an "Independent Living Strategist". The voucher system takes finance out of the question but is small enough to have safeguards against abuse. The voucher removes seniors concerns about costs and they are more willing to have changes made. Vouchers meet the needs of both public and private partners. Vouchers also allow referrals from professional entities such as medical and civic organizations.
Budgets for this program have been considered and show some preliminary numbers. Paul Furtaw and Home Remedies will be available for continued training as well as mentoring of graduating participants.
Private business grown by public funding is how we meet the need.
I hope for more detailed information in fall 2012.
Any positive feedback would be welcome.
