Bill Owens, CGR, CAPS has worked with older clientele for a number of years and developed his business to solve remodeling problems for the aging population. With sponsorship from Home Care by Moen, the Homes for Life award recognizes excellence in remodeling a home for aging or accessibility, creating a home to last a lifetime.

Owens was involved in creating CAPS from the very beginning, starting with preliminary meetings with AARP and learning about the challenges seniors experienced in finding accessible housing. Part of the problem was that seniors didn’t know how to find trustworthy contractors. “We also knew there was a tremendous need in the contracting industry to train remodelers on what home modifications were,” says Owens. “We left the meeting with a roadmap of the CAPS program and that’s basically the form that it took. We had two days of training on understanding, working with the older adult, a training module on the actual home modifications, and a third day on the intro to business management. The business management portion was included because we wanted to train the contactors to be sustainable, to have businesses that would be viable.”

As a designation, Owens says CAPS gives credibility and it’s immediately useful and practical. “CAPS really allows you to hit the road running,” says Owens. It helps remodelers look at their projects on a whole different level, through “CAPS eyes,” and apply the principles and lessons from the courses on every job. “It drives you to think at a different level.”

The project which earned Owens the Homes for Life award involved remodeling and adding a first-floor addition onto a historical home for an aging couple. Degenerative eye disease and injuries from a fall required improved accessibility for the husband and a set up making caretaking easier for his wife. Owens was able to expedite the permitting, planning, and remodel to finish most of the project before the husband returned from a stay in the hospital. The remodel included an extended master bedroom and courtyard, with beautiful design elements.

Owens views successful CAPS projects as rooted in great design. “The root of CAPS is just great design. It’s fine to have space, but it’s another thing to have well designed space and I think CAPS is really doing this nicely,” says Owens.

With a large portion of his business coming from CAPS projects, Owens sees only growth in the coming years. However, the challenge is to market and persuade customers to consider universal design elements. “The real opportunity in the CAPS market right now is what I call the phantom market.” This market includes the aging Baby Boomer or those who are caretaking for parents and children, but don’t acknowledge they may develop health concerns or need to adapt their homes. Selling CAPS to these customers is difficult, but Owens sees it as repackaging CAPS and selling great design.

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