Aging in place in South Tucson

We match across Tucson and the surrounding Pima County communities, so the contractor you are introduced to is one whose crews actually work your part of the county.

Permits, utilities and local rules for Aging in Place work in South Tucson

South Tucson is unusual on this list in a way that matters: it is an incorporated city - a square-mile enclave surrounded by Tucson - so the building permit for a widened doorway, a curbless shower or a ramp comes from the City of South Tucson's own building department, which runs its own online permit and code complaint portal, rather than from Tucson or from Pima County. Water is a different story: the city runs no water utility of its own, and the taps are on Tucson Water, which serves South Tucson as one of the jurisdictions outside the city limits on its system. The housing is the oldest and the densest in the metro. Most of it was built between the 1920s and the 1960s: small single-storey houses on narrow lots, some of them masonry or adobe, most on a slab, with one bathroom, a tub-and-shower combination in a compact footprint and a bathroom door that measures 28 inches or less in the earliest plans. Because the lots are small and the houses close together, the work is almost always about the inside of the house and the width of the door rather than about a long exterior ramp.

Municipal reference: Tucson Water

Getting an accessibility contractor out to South Tucson

South Tucson is minutes from downtown, bounded by South 6th Avenue, 22nd Street and 29th Street, with I-10 running past its western edge and South 12th Avenue and Nogales Highway serving the blocks inside it. The drive is the shortest on this list, so a South Tucson address is often the easiest one to add to a day that is already in the city. The constraint is the block itself: this is a dense, walkable, mostly older neighbourhood with on-street parking, narrow frontages and houses close to the sidewalk, so a material drop needs planning and a work vehicle has to fit where a resident would park. The other local condition is exposure rather than storm risk - the sidewalks here are unshaded, and from May through September a walk of two blocks or a step at the door in full sun is the part of the day that decides when the work can be done.

What South Tucson's housing stock means for aging in place

South Tucson is the oldest housing stock in the metro, and it reads that way in the measurements. Most houses are single storey on a slab, small in floor area, with one bathroom in the great majority of them, and the bathroom is a tub-and-shower combination in a compact layout behind a door that measures around 28 inches in the oldest plans. Interior floors are tile or sealed concrete, hard and slick when wet, and some of the older houses have raised thresholds between rooms that a walker has to negotiate. Wall construction varies - masonry and adobe in the earliest houses, block or framed later - so how a grab bar gets fixed, and whether blocking has to be added, is a question the contractor answers by opening the wall. Because the front doors sit one or two risers above the sidewalk and the lots are narrow, the ramp that comes up on this list is a short one in a tight space, which is exactly the situation where the 1:12 rule and the available run have to be reconciled before a price is agreed.

What accessibility work does a South Tucson home need most?

Which Aging in Place services can we match in South Tucson, AZ?

How much does aging in place work cost in South Tucson, AZ?

Sources

Aging in Place tools & calculators

Aging in Place resources