The Rhode Island Livable Home Modification Grant Program Needs Your Support
The Rhode Island Livable Home Modification Grant Program is in danger of being defunded. We at Oakley Home Access feel responsible to do everything we can to maintain funding for this valuable program. This includes expressing our support to all of our Rhode Island state representatives.
Below you will find our open letter to the members of the Rhode Island General Assembly in support of RILHMG. We invite you to please copy and paste the below letter, or utilize key points at your discretion, and send it to your local district representatives. Residents of every town in Rhode Island have benefited from this grant, therefore each representative has a reason to support this program and agree with the sentiments contained in the letter:
Dear members of the General Assembly,
We encourage you to support the Rhode Island Home Modification Grant Program (RIHMG) as it provides funds to thousands of elderly and disabled Rhode Islanders to modify their homes with wheelchair ramps, stairlifts, and walk-in or roll-in showers, allowing them to age safely at home.
These types of home modifications will become even more important to older Rhode Islanders as we address the new normal brought on by COVID-19. To keep them safe, some older Rhode Islanders have been moved out of nursing homes, and families are reconsidering nursing homes altogether. But without the Livable Home Modification Grant Program, their home may not be a safe or accessible place for our State’s loved ones to live.
Additional benefits of the Livable Home Modification Program include:
- Keeping people in their own homes and not nursing homes, saves state taxpayer dollars by reducing state Medicaid costs.
- These home modifications, like walk-in/roll-in showers, chair lifts, and wheelchair ramps, become permanent assets for future homeowners.
- Addressing these home modifications will reduce falls, which represent the leading case of injury hospitalizations in Rhode Island, and most of these people are age 65 and over.
The Livable Home Modification Grant program is a critical lifeline for the thousands of families who choose to keep their loved ones at home instead of a nursing home. Although it is a small fraction of the State’s overall budget, the program has had and will have a significant impact on so many Rhode Island families. We are asking for your support for keeping the program fully funded at the $500,000.00 earmarked in the 2021 fiscal year budget. With the current public health crisis, it has become more pertinent than ever to keep individuals, Rhode Island residents, safely at home and out of congregate settings.
Sincerely,
Your Constituent
In order to easily locate and contact your local representatives, please visit the link below and click “Find your Legislator” on the right hand side of the page: