Dover's Aging-in-Place Contractor — Serving the Capital City

Delaware’s Capital City and a Community Built to Stay

Dover anchors the center of Delaware — geographically, politically, and in many ways culturally. As the state capital, it is home to Legislative Hall, the state government workforce, Bayhealth Kent General Hospital, Delaware State University, and Dover Air Force Base. These institutions have drawn families to Dover for generations, creating neighborhoods where people put down roots with the intention of staying permanently.

That permanence creates the need we serve. Government employees who moved to Dover in their 30s to work at state agencies now find themselves in their 60s and 70s, living in the same ranch-style homes they purchased decades ago. Military families who settled near the base after retirement are aging into disabilities connected to years of service. Long-time residents along State Street, Division Street, and the neighborhoods south of Silver Lake are confronting the reality that their homes were not designed for the mobility challenges that come with getting older.

Accessible Solutions provides Dover families with the complete range of aging-in-place services: modular ramps with rental options starting at $300 per month, bathtub-to-shower conversions, roll-in showers, grab bars and handrails, stairlifts, vertical platform lifts, doorway widenings, first-floor living conversions, and durable medical equipment.

The Dover Housing Landscape and What It Means for Aging Residents

Dover’s residential neighborhoods reflect several distinct eras of construction, each presenting its own accessibility profile.

The older neighborhoods closer to downtown and the State Capitol complex — along State Street, Governors Avenue, Division Street, and the side streets in between — feature two-story colonials, Cape Cods, and bungalows built from the 1930s through the 1960s. These homes have the familiar challenges of their era: steep staircases to second-floor bedrooms, small bathrooms with combination tub-showers, narrow hallways, and front entries elevated above grade with concrete steps.

South and east of downtown, the neighborhoods surrounding Dover Air Force Base and extending toward Camden and Magnolia consist largely of single-story ranch homes built during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. These homes dominate Dover’s housing stock, and while they offer the advantage of single-floor living, they were not built with accessibility in mind. Step-over heights into bathtubs, narrow bathroom doors, ungraded exterior entries, and hallways that cannot accommodate a wheelchair are standard features in nearly every ranch from this period.

Newer developments along Route 13 and in the outskirts toward Smyrna offer more open floor plans and wider interiors, but still place master bedrooms on the second floor, lack accessible bathroom fixtures, and feature steps at every exterior entry point.

We modify homes from every era. Our assessment process identifies the specific barriers in each property and produces a plan tailored to that home’s construction, the resident’s mobility situation, and the funding sources available to the family.

Dover Air Force Base and the Veteran Community

Dover Air Force Base is the largest aerial port in the Department of Defense and has been a cornerstone of the Dover community for decades. The neighborhoods surrounding the base — Woodcrest, Capitol Green, Rodney Village, Kent Acres, and the communities stretching south toward Camden — are home to thousands of active-duty service members, retirees, and veterans.

Many of these veterans are aging with service-connected injuries and conditions that progressively affect mobility. Knee and hip deterioration from years of physical service. Spinal injuries that limit range of motion. Neurological conditions that affect balance and coordination. These are not sudden events — they are gradual progressions that make the home incrementally less safe over months and years until a fall or a medical event forces the conversation about modification.

We work with veterans regularly and understand the funding landscape available to military families. The VA HISA grant program provides funding for ramps, bathroom modifications, and structural changes tied to service-connected disabilities. When combined with Delaware’s DSHP+ Medicaid waiver, qualifying veteran families can often have comprehensive home modifications completed with little or no personal expense. We coordinate with both programs simultaneously, managing all documentation and authorization timelines so the veteran’s family is not burdened with administrative work during an already stressful period.

Bayhealth and the Hospital Discharge Corridor

Bayhealth Kent General Hospital sits on Kenton Road in the heart of Dover, serving as the primary acute care facility for central Delaware. Patients recovering from hip and knee replacements, strokes, cardiac events, and other procedures are discharged daily — many returning to homes that are not prepared for their current mobility limitations.

The discharge planning window is narrow. A family may learn on a Tuesday that their mother is being sent home on Friday, and suddenly the front steps, the bathtub, and the narrow bathroom doorway become urgent problems rather than future considerations.

Our Middletown headquarters is approximately 30 minutes north of Dover, and we maintain enough staged inventory to respond to discharge-related needs on a priority basis. Rental ramps provide immediate exterior access. Grab bar installations can be completed within days. And for families who need more extensive modifications, we begin the assessment and planning process immediately so that work can proceed as quickly as the scope allows.

We also coordinate with Bayhealth’s discharge planning staff and physical therapy teams when families request it, ensuring that the modifications we install align with the clinical recommendations for the patient’s recovery and long-term safety.

Dover’s Government Workforce and Long-Term Residents

Dover’s identity as the state capital means a significant portion of its population consists of current and former state government employees. Teachers, administrators, law enforcement officers, and civil servants who spent careers working for the State of Delaware often purchased homes in Dover’s neighborhoods during their working years and have no intention of leaving in retirement.

This population tends to plan ahead. They research options, compare providers, and ask informed questions about licensing, insurance, materials, and long-term durability. They want to understand the difference between a company that installs a prefabricated product and a licensed contractor who can handle structural work when the project demands it.

That distinction matters in Dover’s housing stock. When a bathroom conversion in a 1960s ranch home reveals water damage beneath the tub, rotted subfloor, or outdated plumbing that cannot support modern fixtures, the project expands beyond what any product installer can handle. We carry a Delaware contractor’s license because we regularly encounter these situations and resolve them as part of the same project. One crew, one company, one point of accountability from the first grab bar to the most involved renovation.

Making Medicaid Work for Dover Families

Dover and the surrounding Kent County area have a higher concentration of Medicaid-eligible residents than much of the state. The DSHP+ waiver program is specifically designed to fund the kinds of modifications that keep people safely in their homes — ramps, bathroom conversions, grab bars, doorway widenings, and related structural improvements. The program covers significant coverage.

Despite the program’s generosity, many Dover families never access it because they are unaware it exists or assume the application process is too complicated to navigate. We eliminate both barriers. During every home assessment, Ray identifies whether the resident qualifies for DSHP+ coverage and explains exactly what the program will fund. If the family chooses to proceed, we complete every piece of paperwork, submit the authorization request, coordinate approval, perform the installation, and bill Medicaid directly. The family’s involvement in the administrative process is zero.

For a typical Dover ranch home, a single DSHP+ authorization can fund a complete bathtub-to-shower conversion with grab bars, a fold-down bench, and a hand-held showerhead. A second authorization can fund a modular ramp at the front entry. A third can add grab bars in the hallway and bedroom. Spread across the lifetime cap, the program can transform a home’s accessibility without the family spending a dollar.

Every Project Starts With Ray at Your Door

Ray Petkevis conducts every initial assessment in Dover personally. He drives to your home, walks through it with your family, measures every hallway and doorway, evaluates every bathroom and entry point, and produces a recommendation based on the specific construction of your home and the specific needs of your family member. He has assessed hundreds of Dover-area homes and knows the construction patterns, the common layouts, and the typical structural conditions of properties across every neighborhood in the city.

That assessment is free. It carries no obligation. And it gives your family a clear, honest picture of what modifications will make the most difference for safety and independence in the home you already love.