Transcript: Living Choices with NUUage Coliving, Furnished Finder and WheelPad L3C

This is the transcript for the Rethinking Aging Club Podcast episode recorded August 20, 2026.

Episode Title: Living Choices with NUUage Coliving, Furnished Finder and WheelPad L3C

Recorded: August 20, 2026 / Published September 17, 2026

Guests:

Elizabeth White, Founder, NUUage Coliving

Cami Nariño, COO, Furnished Finder

Julie Lineberger, CEO, WheelPad L3C

Co-hosts:

Linda Sherman, Managing Editor, Boomer Tech Talk, Rethinking Aging Club podcasts founder and executive producer

Ray Gordon, architect, urban planner, futurist, former Pratt Institute grad school professor and avid science reader.

Debbie Howard, caregiver advocate, co-founder, Tokyo-based AgeTech platform Living Best.

Show Notes: Living Choices with NUUage Coliving, Furnished Finder and WheelPad L3C

Linda Sherman 00:05

Welcome to the Rethinking Aging Club show. I am Linda Sherman. Each week, we host presentations and discussion with special guest experts on an important topic in the field of rethinking aging. We’ll be introducing this week’s co-hosts and guests during the show. We’re happy you’ve joined us.

Today is August 20, 2026, and I am going to introduce my two co-hosts, and then I’m going to do a brief introduction to this show, and then we will have our first speaker.

So first of all, I would like to introduce Debbie Howard. Debbie Howard is a marketing and communications strategist with over 40 years of experience, including decades of work in Japan. She co-founded the Tokyo-based AgeTech platform Living Best, which uses consumer insights to guide innovation and go-to-market execution. She is also a caregiver-friendly workplace strategist and author of two books on caregiving. Through both Living Best and her company Aging Matters International, she participates in the AgeTech Collaborative from AARP.

Ray Gordon is an architect, urban planner, futurist, and prior graduate school professor at both Pratt Institute and NYU. Ray brings a unique perspective to scientific aging-related topics.

Ray Gordon 01:53

And I’d like to introduce Linda Sherman. She’s the founder and executive producer of the News for the Ages podcast and the Rethinking Aging Club podcast, a participant in the AgeTech Collaborative from AARP. She is managing editor of Boomer Tech Talk, home of the club’s podcasts. Linda previously served as CEO and CMO for multinational subsidiaries in Japan and now serves as chief longevity officer for LA-based Miracle of the Sea. She helps people understand the best research products and conversations in aging, longevity, caregiving, and AgeTech. Linda is also a role model for healthy longevity, staying physically fit while embracing aging with curiosity, purpose, and community. Take it away, Linda.

Linda Sherman 02:37

Thank you so much, Ray Gordon. Today we’re talking about living choices and some alternatives you may not have thought about when considering where and how you want to live as you age.

Most of us want to stay independent and in control of those decisions. In fact, one survey cited by AARP found that 95% of people 55 and older want to remain in their current homes as long as possible. But here’s the problem: according to the U.S. Census Bureau, only about 10% of American homes are considered aging-ready, and there are other challenges. Housing costs are rising. Many of us, especially women, are living alone. Our homes may be larger than we need, while other people desperately need housing. And a home that works perfectly well today may not work if we suddenly have surgery, an injury, or changes in mobility.

So perhaps we need to think much more creatively about what aging in place can mean. It might mean staying in your own home but sharing it, creating a golden girl-style arrangement that can offer both financial benefits and companionship. It might mean making better use of housing that’s already available, including furnished homes or even individual rooms that can be rented for longer stays. Or it might mean actually adding an accessible living space to an existing home, allowing someone to recover from surgery, rehabilitate after an injury, or live close to family while maintaining independence. Today, we’re going to explore all three.

Our guests are Elizabeth White, co-founder of NUUage Coliving; Cami Nariño, Chief Operating Officer of Furnished Finder; and Julie Lineberger, CEO of WheelPad. Three very different approaches, but all of them expand the choices we have about where and how we live as we grow older. And I think you’re going to hear some possibilities today that you may not have considered before.

So now I am going to introduce Elizabeth White. Elizabeth, we’re so happy to have you with us today. Elizabeth White is a nationally recognized voice on aging, financial precarity, and the future of shared living for older women. As co-founder of NUUage Coliving and a workshop facilitator with the Modern Elder Academy, she leads the Golden Girls Workshop series, guiding women through emotional and practical work of readiness for co-living before they ever sign a lease. Her advocacy draws on her own experience and research into the retirement income gap and has reached audience through a TEDx talk with over 2 million views. Her book “55 Underemployed and Faking Normal” and ongoing writing and speaking on what it takes for older women to build secure, connected lives together. I met Elizabeth White at the Aging in America conference in 2018, now called On Aging, and she is a delightful person, and we are so happy, happy to have you here. Thank you, Elizabeth White. Please.

Elizabeth White 06:06

No, I’m thrilled to be here and talking about this topic. And I’m going to say I’m about 10 years into the topic of women and financial precarity and then got to shared living with so many women. And I’m not talking about women who have been struggling all their lives and are having a tough go of it in older age. I’m talking about women who are doing fine but are looking at living well into their 80s and have not set aside the $2 million that they might need to maintain their current lifestyle, and the fear that they’re going to run out of savings and what’s going to happen to them.

So that’s how I got from financial precarity to really looking at shared housing and joined a venture studio a few years ago, where I got to really, you know, consider whether or not I wanted to actually throw my hat in the ring building the housing. We hear about the affordability and the dealing with loneliness and isolation. As I am talking to women, many women who have lived alone for years or decades, you know. So these are women who are solo agers, maybe never married by choice or circumstances. They might be divorced, or they might be widowed, but they’re now sort of thinking about, “What do I want this next chapter to look like?”

And I think sometimes when we talk about shared housing, we don’t talk about the psychological sort of shift that that would mean for many women who probably have not lived with other women since college. And so the work that I’m doing now, I’m working with the Modern Elder Academy, is helping women really assess their readiness. We’re talking about women who live in situations where they control every aspect of their lives: the thermostat, the noise level, the furnishings, what’s in the refrigerator, and we’re asking them to consider living with other women for the first time in many years, and that is, I think, more of a process.

Especially when we see some of the research that AARP has done, which speaks to most people want to age at home. So when you get a group of women who aren’t sure about this, because it’s not like we can easily go to shared living communities and there’s a model home you can see and you can visit and you have friends who’ve done it and you kind of know how it would work out, you hear women speak in a shorthand, “Golden Girls,” which is kind of shorthand for community. But as I’m now engaging women in conversation about what their hopes are around this, the kinds of personalities that they have, their own concern about who would I get matched with? I think this is a dimension of the conversation that’s often missing that we need to have. And I’ll pause there.

Linda Sherman 09:32

Thank you so much, Elizabeth White. Amazingly, AARP published an article just yesterday quoting you, so that was hot off the press. You and your thoughts continue to be in the news. Congratulations! I’m going to turn it over to Debbie and Ray first to see if they have something.

Ray Gordon 09:55

Hi, this is Ray. I have a quick question, just generally. How do you see the opportunities for geographically expanding the possibilities for these women to have these opportunities to have shared housing? I’m sure that there are areas that these are available, and there are areas where it’s very hard to find such combinations.

Elizabeth White 10:15

When you say the supply, is that what you’re asking about? How do we get more supply so that women can have options? Is that what you’re asking?

Ray Gordon 10:24

Yeah, the supply, and also I’m assuming that there’s a geographic ability. If some areas have more opportunities than others, and how you would see it expanding those opportunities?

Elizabeth White 10:35

So I’m not going to even say that I see some areas have more opportunities than others. I think right now, when I think of shared housing, it’s often for nomads or students, or, you know, some workforce housing, but housing that is specifically designed for older adults. There’s some in the co-housing space. I was just looking at a list now, but for women who may not want to buy but want to rent? It’s not like there’s a lot of supply.

I think we are still early to the market with this. I think women want more supply. In the workshops I’ve been doing, there’s a few women who are actually looking to build. Sometimes it’s build because they inherited land from their grandmother, and they want to build something there. And then a few want to actually build bigger communities. But for women looking to live with older women or looking to be in multi-generational spaces, I think we’re still early, and my hope is that we can sort of enroll more developers to come into this space and to start designing for it as sort of part of a portfolio. So they would do their regular housing that they do, but there would be some experimentation here so that we have the opportunity to get the right concept—that concept that would actually pencil.

Linda Sherman 12:13

So emboldening developers to jump into this space is a big part of what you’re trying to do. Is that correct, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth White 12:22

Yes, I think we’ve all seen there’s this missing middle part where there’s a lot of focus on market and the high end of the market. And then there’s Medicaid, and there are a lot of people, a lot of women, who are just right there in the middle. I mean, I think I saw a stat that 54% of older adults in this country cannot afford the traditional senior living options. And so, you know, we clearly need something else. But I think the focus is not there. There’s conversation there, but I haven’t seen the kind of innovation there that I would love to see.

Debbie Howard 13:07

Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for being here and for your comments. I remember we had a great conversation back in 2022 at ASA. This is Debbie speaking. I love that you mentioned the different levels in the market and the middle that is not being addressed—that’s one of my huge concerns, and also the role of developers. I think our developers in this country, and Ray, can speak better to this, but I know in my own local area here in Central Texas, you know, the developers build all these multi-million-dollar houses around here that are not suitable for those who are aging, or let’s say somebody who wants to maybe buy something and turn it over in a few years as an empty nester or something like that. We have a lack of small patio home-type housing stock, you know, one-level-type stuff.

I love the co-housing trend. I want to ask a question to you about: Have you seen anything on the optimal number of units? Let’s say I wanted to make a purpose-built little community with, I don’t know, 12 units, 10 units. Is there a break-even point there yet? Are we even at that point in the conversation when we look at these models?

Elizabeth White 14:24

You know, I’m thinking of there is a shared living space here in D.C. called Mary’s House, and I’m not sure where they are on the break-even point. I think there may be 30-some residents, and the rents are really they’re under $1,000, probably between 900 and $1,000. I have not seen that other places. You were mentioning Texas. I’m just actually getting ready to do a tiny house tour next Tuesday. Going to look at some properties there. I’m just looking.

Debbie Howard 15:02

We have something here, Elizabeth, called Bestie Row B E S T I E. It’s like four or five tiny homes that some friends got together and bought the land and put it up, and that received a lot of press about I’m going to say six or seven years ago. So that could be something fun you could see while you’re here.

Elizabeth White 15:23

Yeah, we’re going to see Bird’s Nest. I think that’s the one we’ve all read about. I’m just looking here. There’s something called Primrose Village, Barton Cottages, something called Cowtown Cottages Showroom, The Waters Tiny Home Community, Bingham Estate. So this is a sort of four-day tour that we’re doing because I want to actually get out and see directly what’s out there.

And when I was thinking about building, and we were working with developer and architect, I mean, we were really battling to try to keep the rent under $1,500, because for my audience, more than that becomes like not really tenable. And even Chip Conley at MEA is going to build a tiny house village there, and that new build is just, you know, it’s really expensive. So that makes me think about what about sort of a motel that could be adapted or a school or a monastery? You know, do we have to look at other than new build to make this affordable for the women and pencil for the developer?

Debbie Howard 16:42

Okay. That sounds really interesting. I guess the takeaway is that things have moved a whole lot in the last 10 years. I wrote about this, I’m going to say, somewhere between seven and 10 years ago, just about new living options. And gosh, it’s really—I know it feels like slogging through mud to all of us in the business, but it’s starting to happen. So I think that’s good.

Ray Gordon 17:06

Yeah, the one thing I found to be one of the biggest hurdles here is zoning regulations and government commitment. And I find that a lot of times zoning is based on a number of units per acre, but they’re looking at traditional units. They’re looking at entire homes. Each unit might be seen as having four to six people living in them, and they say, “Okay, you have four units per acre.” You know, they’re going to have 16-20 people living there. And it really looks at the density in a different way.

And if you’re talking about tiny homes or things of that sort, affordable kinds of construction, where you’re talking about smaller units that are self-contained but that have relationship to each other, that often is not something that the zoning regulations provide for. And I find that even in an urbanized area, that’s difficult to get the communities and the local organizations that are involved in the government regulations to try and make that happen.

And also on the other side, one of the things that costs a lot, even with tiny homes, is getting the utilities in there, and utility cost is actually something that’s a significant component of building these smaller units. So there’s also the possibility of maybe getting government involved in providing subsidies for getting the utility service to these projects so that the developers and builders of these can have an affordable option for their residents.

Elizabeth White 18:25

What I saw with Mary’s house that I was mentioning here in D.C. for all these reasons, Ray, it took her 12 years to get it through all those hurdles because, you know, the municipal they’re not used to this is unfamiliar, so everything is precedent-setting.

Ray Gordon 18:46

Yes, and I think that there’s a way. There should be ways of being able to lobby governments to understand that these are different kinds of units, and maybe you can put some kinds of rules based on the occupancy so that they can understand that these will not be just out in the market without any kind of thought behind who’s going to be living in them.

Elizabeth White 19:05

Agree.

Linda Sherman 19:07

This article that came out from AARP yesterday was really, really good. Elizabeth, you’ve had a chance to look at it, I imagine, since you quoted it. And I think one of the things that they bring up is, as Ray said, you know, zoning and possible restrictions on the number of residents that can be in one space and that kind of thing, and that policy help with that would be very helpful for the kind of sharing that we’re talking about.

And we’ll have this article, of course, in the show notes, along with one of the resources that’s in here, which is the National Shared Housing Resource Center, which has information on a range of nonprofit home sharing programs around the country that includes Home Share, Oregon, and others. So, thank you so much for your contribution to that and to everything that you’re doing, Elizabeth.

I’d like to get onto our next two speakers. Okay, I am going to go ahead and introduce Cami Nariño. We talked about Furnished Finder in June because Elizabeth Magallon Fleury brought us an article from Architectural Digest that featured them along with a variety of ways that people were finding alternative housing, and we got really excited about Furnished Finder because I had never heard of it, and when I looked at it, I found all these places right in Kauai, and I said, “Wow, how is it that I never heard of Furnished Finder?”

So, I think it’s very important that everybody know about this service. And we’re just so delighted that you’re able to be with us here today, Cami, especially with what’s going on with your team in Colombia and with the earthquake and everything. So, let me introduce you first.

So, Camila Nariño is chief operating officer at Furnished Finder, where she spent a decade building the company from its earliest days, joining as the first operations hire and scaling it into a national platform with 300,000-plus furnished listings. She leads a fully remote global team of 200 people and more, including an operations team in Colombia that’s 90% women, many of whom have found new pathways into tech through her leadership. Before Furnished Finder, she worked in international trade and infrastructure. Originally from Bogota, Cami now lives in Austin with her partner Rob and their two kittens and dreams of someday owning a farm with a donkey and a few goats. And by the way, Debbie lives just an hour out of Austin in Wimberley.

Cami, please tell us all about Furnished Finder.

Cami Nariño 22:15

Thank you so much, you guys, for having me here, and I absolutely love this intro. And it’s just wonderful to have the opportunity to be in this space with you guys. I’ve been here at Furnished Finder, as you mentioned, for about 10 years at this point, and a lot of our marketplace is actually centered around people that are 55 and older. For anyone that has not come across just yet, Furnished Finder is the largest marketplace in the U.S. for furnished rentals of 30 days or more. So, if you think of us as the sweet spot between short-term rentals or hotels in a traditional year-long lease, you know it’s in between a real home that is fully furnished, where you can move in with a suitcase and not necessarily have to make it a long-term commitment, and you can stay. You know, the average length of a stay for our travelers is about, you know, three months, but anywhere between 30 day plus is what we see. You know, our travelers generally search for.

As I mentioned, it’s a very interesting demographic for us being able to speak to you guys today. We did a survey earlier this year, and we learned that 64% of our landlords that responded were 55 and older, and about 52% of our travelers were also. So it’s a very big segment that for us continues to grow. And you know, for folks that are thinking, hey, maybe I have some extra space. Could I be doing something different with it, or maybe I’d love to spend a few months closer to my grandkids or my family? This conversation and what Furnished Finder is about is generally for you.

You know, on the landlord side, Linda, just as you mentioned, we see people reach this stage of life and realize that their home and their situation has changed because life has changed. So maybe it’s a guest house that is no longer being used, or a basement apartment where a parent or partner or family member used to live, or just simply a room that is just sitting empty at home. And what a lot of people we see that don’t realize just yet is that that space could become an income-producing asset, you know. Another interesting fact is, as I was just doing some research to prep for this podcast and to join you guys as well, is that about 44% of our landlords describe themselves as retired or semi-retired, and they’re utilizing the rental income that they’re generating through Furnished Finder to supplement what they’re living on.

You know, so there’s so much opportunity in this space, and not just on the landlord side, but on the traveler side as well. You know, where we see people that are utilizing Furnished Finder to just find those temporary accommodations. Maybe it is that you want to, you can, and you’re looking for a different type of space that better suits your needs. You know, or you’re looking for a space that is closer to a family member that is in the hospital. Or we’ve seen stories of grandparents that had, you know, grandchildren that were scattered across the Southwest and wanted to actually be closer to them, even if it was just for a year.

So things like that are the stories that have moved and continue to shape Furnished Finder into what it is, and it’s a marketplace that has been built around this, right? And how do we build that direct connection and allow for both our landlords and our travelers to connect with each other so that you can find the best match for where your life is at and where you’re at in general?

Linda Sherman 25:28

When we look at other services, particularly for short-term rentals like Airbnb, there are certain safeguards, insurance, things like that. How does Furnished Finder approach that?

Cami Nariño 25:43

Yeah, it’s an excellent question. I think that the main way in which we differ from Airbnb is the type of demographics that we serve, right? So, for Furnished Finder, as we look at the travelers that we support, we generally tend to see, you know, relocating families, business travelers. We see traveling healthcare professionals as well that are relocating from time to time, you know, for every three months or so. So we are already starting with a base of travelers that is high quality.

On the landlord side, Furnished Finder also runs through an ID verification process for every landlord, and on the tenant side, you know, we partner, and we offer services that empower for background screening, credit checks, and so on, as well as different other products that our landlords and travelers can access in order to supplement that process, that rental process.

If you think about Furnished Finder, I think that one of the things that our landlords and travelers value so much is that you own the process. So you also get to chat with your landlord, and you, as a landlord, get to chat and meet your traveler before making any sort of commercial rental agreement so that you guys can both find a good fit. And I see that being one of the things that have made us so successful, especially in this group, you know, of boomers and, you know, aging population, because you want to make sure that you’re building these relationships both with your landlord and with your traveler, and you can just go through that specific rental process to make sure that you have all the safeguards. You know, a lease agreement as well. You know that you’re collecting a security deposit and you’re doing all of these things that are generally considered part of a more established, longer rental process. But it is definitely applicable and recommended for monthly rentals as well.

Linda Sherman 27:22

I love the support of healthcare, especially living in a remote area like Kauai. Supporting healthcare people to be able to travel to our Wilcox Hospital and support us and so forth. We’re always looking for housing for them and these kinds of things. What Furnished Finder is doing is very helpful.

I’m also impressed with the idea of the Boomer Landlord because this is something that can allow someone to stay in their home. So you have a home, and it’s bigger than you need, and you may have even had your parent in an area that was for them. You know, the grandma ADU, whatever you have created, and this allows you to make use of this for the future so that you can stay there.

Cami Nariño 28:20

Absolutely, and that’s what we see with so many of our landlords. You know, as you were talking about traveling healthcare, for example, as a segment, that’s where we started. I remember 10 years ago, as we were thinking about Furnished Finder and how to start building this marketplace. At the beginning, the first type of traveler that we served was the traveling nurse, right? And we started modeling when it comes down to the type of inventory that we’re looking for. When it comes down to, like, how we build the comms through the platform, how do we build the product on what that specific type of traveler needed during COVID is when we actually saw the huge impact that this could have when it came down to empowering different types of tenants that didn’t really have a place to find safe and secured housing anywhere else to actually come and use Furnished Finder. And COVID for us was the moment in which we grew the most, and we went from about 20,000 properties to where we are today, which is more than 300,000 nationwide.

So it is a huge opportunity. And as you guys are discussing housing and different places in which people can reference to, like, leverage their existing inventory, or places in which they can move into, Furnished Finder is definitely an option. We hear from so many of our customers. You know, over the years I’ve heard so many customer stories, and as my support teams are chatting with our landlords every day, and the success stories of landlords that have been able to retain their property, their family property, because they can supplement and they can rent two-three bedrooms, and support at the same time a traveling medical professional or somebody that is, you know, moving for a job—it’s such a special place to be.

Linda Sherman 30:03

Thank you so much. What is typically the monthly cost on these? I know I’m sure there’s a huge range, but…

Cami Nariño 30:13

Yeah, if we’re talking about it as a traveler, and if you’re looking for housing and Furnished Finder, we have presence all over the U.S. You know, not just large metros, but you know, think of the smallest areas in the country. You probably have inventory available there.

In pricing, yes, it changes by market quite a bit, but your average room in the U.S., if we were to aggregate everything, it’s probably around $1,000. And then from there, you know, we have studios that generally are average for the entire country, about 1500. And then from there, anything else that you’re looking for just depends on amenities and so on. With, of course, markets that are going to drive that average up. You know, if you’re looking at San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, that are going to drive pricing up versus other markets that are smaller, in which inventory is sitting at, say, $700, right?

So it does depend, and it also depends on what you’re looking for as a tenant that is looking for housing, what type of amenities. We have people that really enjoy co-living, and then this is an opportunity to connect back to the community, and so on. And that inventory, of course, is going to have a different price point that tends to be lower versus a three-bedroom home for a full relocating family.

Linda Sherman 31:25

Excellent. Does Julie or Elizabeth have something they want to ask Cami?

Elizabeth White 31:32

I’m interested in the matching piece. There’s the credit check and background check. Is it typically there’s one person living in a home, or could there be an owner who has three bedrooms and therefore has three guests in their home, who would all now need to get along?

Cami Nariño 31:53

We see both different scenarios. It depends on the homeowner. It depends, of course, also on the travelers. For inventory that tends to be larger on the larger side, say your three- or four-bedroom, we do see that the homeowner will tend to open the rooms individually and negotiate individually with each tenant, and sometimes in some cases have them meet each other beforehand as well to make sure that they’re going to be a fit.

The majority of our inventory, of course, also sits on the smaller side, where it might be the homeowner plus one extra bedroom, you know, or a single space that is available as well, like, say, your ADU or your basement apartment or an apartment that was built on top of the garage, so that the tenant can have its own, you know, like personal space.

So we see a little bit of everything, to be honest with you, because there’s just so much richness when it comes down to the inventory that could be available, and our landlords have created some very interesting spaces that they rent successfully through the platform.

Elizabeth White 32:52

And is the distinction between sort of Airbnb is the duration of the stay, which would be? It sounds like it’s longer, but not necessarily like years, like under a year, but more than a month. Or is there? Do I have that wrong?

Cami Nariño 33:10

No, I think you have it absolutely right. We specialize in monthly rentals, so yeah, the duration tends to be longer. But we also have a couple of other things that set us apart.

We built this entire marketplace to allow for direct interaction. And what that means is, as a landlord and as a traveler, you have control of who you want to rent to and how you want to build that rental process. So you negotiate directly, right? We will connect you with the travelers that are moving into your area. You can interview them; they can interview you. You guys can build a relationship before moving into the agreement component of that relationship.

And then the other part of it is our fee structure on the landlord side as well, and on the tenant side is wildly different because we do not work with any commissions or booking fees or anything like that. Landlords pay Furnished Finder a listing fee on a yearly basis that is $199 this year to advertise your property, and then from there you negotiate, and you work with as many travelers as you like.

What we’ve seen over the years is that we have tenants that, you know, of course, on average are going to be there for about three months, but we have tenants that have built these extremely strong relationships with their landlords, where they stay for a year, or they leave for six months and then they come back, or every summer they go back into that household and that rental, and then they just rent it over and over again for years at a time.

So it just depends, and I think that’s the beauty of this space is that it’s a marketplace, and inherently it’s transactional, but it’s not necessarily just transactional; it’s relational. And we see that all of these relationships are built, and you’re strengthening that sense of community in some of those locations too. So it makes for a very attractive model.

Elizabeth White 34:51

Because one of the things that we thought was a selling point when we would be talking with developers with older women is this idea that they would stay. You know that you wouldn’t have issues around occupancy, because a woman who’s late 50s, early 60s is not necessarily going to want to move every six months.

And what I’m learning through the work with MEA is that there’s a category of women who are—I’m going to say—in disruption. So it could be a divorce, sudden job loss, or some other thing where they actually are looking for what you’re offering. They want six months or four months somewhere to kind of figure out what they want to do next.

And I think when we first started, we were, you know, seeing women more in transition than disruption. So they’re ready to move into some place for years, but there’s definitely, you know, we’ve learned this market for women who are looking for 3-4-5-month stays.

Cami Nariño 36:01

Exactly, I think you hit it right on the spot. Those moments of disruption, we see that happen quite a bit with our travelers.

You know, another segment that we serve, just to give you another example, is insurance housing, and it’s similar, right? There’s a moment in which the family or the individual needs transitional homes that are going to be available for a month only, and that they need to be furnished, or, say, a case that I can remember as we’re talking about this is a homeowner that had a job offer, you know, in a different area of the country, and what the homeowner tried to sell that property that they had and tried to relocate into another area. They just wanted to shop around to understand the area and the neighborhood. So they moved into a Furnished Finder for just two months while they shopped around. I’ve done this myself, and then from there they were able to find a more permanent solution.

You know, for some of our travelers that are moving in moments of disruption or divorces or family losses as well, which is another, you know, it happens, and it’s part of life for some of our tenants. It’s having this alternative where it’s not long-term and you don’t need to commit to a space that is going to be, you know, 12 months, and then you need to also furnish and you need to set up all of these utilities and do all of these things that are going to be adding stress and cost, and the alternative of something that is already furnished and set up, where you can just come in, drop your bag, and focus on what matters most, is it’s a solution that we see work and support them in their life transitions very well.

Linda Sherman 37:35

I love what you’re doing, Cami. Thank you so much. I really would like to go on further, but we do want to make sure to get to Julie.

But I also want to reiterate what you were saying about the financial structure that the landlord only pays an annual listing fee. And instead of commissions on every single rental that goes through, and I really like that. That’s a really nice setup, and it’s good for people wanting to being able to stay in their homes, as I had pointed out.

So, thank you so much, Cami. I’m going to turn this over to Debbie Howard to introduce Julie for WheelPad. Thank you.

Debbie Howard 38:24

Thank you so much, Linda. Yes, it’s really interesting to see all the different options that are coming around now, and we’re going to hear about a great one next from Julie Linberger, who leads both WheelPad L3C and Line Sync Architecture Limited from Southern Vermont.

WheelPad is a portfolio company of the AgeTech Collaborative from AARP. Julie’s focus is social responsibility at all levels, and she has gained B Corp certification for her businesses. She presents and consults regularly on various aspects of business management and currently serves as co-chair for Green America and as a board member for East Rise Credit Union. Julie’s previous career in international development included managing and participating in projects for the United Nations Development Programme, the International Rescue Committee, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees throughout the world. Hailing originally from California, Julie is bilingual in English and Spanish and holds a Bachelor of Communications in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego, as well as a Master’s of Education from Harvard University.

Julie, we’re so excited to hear more about Wheel Pad. I had seen your exhibit back at CES 2025 and am just so impressed with everything that you’re doing there. Thank you for being with us.

Julie Lineberger 39:59

I’m so excited about WheelPad. My husband and I had an architectural practice called Line Sync Architecture, which is a certified B Corp, and our godson was a videographer, extreme skier all over the world, seeing backwards. He’d take videos of everybody while they were doing their tricks.

And he was doing a documentary on Simon Dumont, a very good freeskier, who was won the X Games, and there was a celebration in the pool. And the next day, Riley’s father called me and says, “Hey, Jewel, we’re not going to make it to brunch,” and I’m giving them all kinds of grief. I haven’t seen you in two and a half years. What? Blah blah blah blah, and they said, “Julie, Riley is in Albany Med fighting for his life. There was an accident in the pool.”

Turns out Riley did fight for his life, came out of it, rehabbed with tetraplegia, which means not only his forelimbs but his core is paralyzed. And he did all his rehab. He finished his documentary on Simon Dumont with adaptive equipment. And Nike, who had offered him a job previously, honored it.

Unfortunately, in Portland, Oregon, he could not find an accessible rental where a caregiver could help him in the shower, so he was forced to live in an accessible motel room for nine months before he found a place. He finally did, called us his godparents, who had an architectural firm. Hey, just bought a house. Can you help me make it universally accessible? So of course we did. We went out there as we were working with him on that. My husband and I don’t know if Ray’s the same way, but a lot of architects have severe ADHD, so he wasn’t listening to our conversation.

He was sketching. And he sketched this 200-square-foot accessible bedroom and bathroom that, out one door, you could. He said you could have attached it to your mom’s house or your brother’s house, and out the other door would be a ramp. So when caregivers came in, they wouldn’t need to go through the whole house.

Well, that’s how WheelPad was born. And then we started marketing to spinal cord injuries. Then found out that there were many people, injured service members, who were living in Walter Reed in various VA situations, not because they needed nursing care, but because their homes weren’t accessible. So we started marketing there.

And then COVID came, and everyone wanted their loved ones out of nursing homes. And this one man called us up, and he says, “Look, my dad, they won’t accept him in nursing homes. I saw your pad.”

Our pads are personal accessible dwellings, and we had at that point just one model, a suite pad, like a bedroom and bathroom suite in a hotel. We happened to have one open, and the previous people who had leased it drove it over to Bob’s house for his father, John, who no nursing home would accept. And they decided that, you know, Dad’s only going to live, all the doctors said, six weeks to six months. So that’s that. We said fine. We’ll lease it to you. We either lease or sell these pads.

And two and a half years later, Bob called up my husband, Joseph, and said, “My dad just died. Thank you for giving me the best effin two and a half years of my life with my dad.”

During those two and a half years that no one thought he could live, he was living on the property with his former wife, who they were in a non-speaking relationship for 40 years; all became friends again. She lives on a tiny house on the property; he lived on in his pet attached to his home with his wife and their child.

And so, and then we started marketing for people who want to age in place, or for adults who say, “My mom’s in a nursing home; I don’t want to be driving 30 minutes each way to see her every day. I want to bring a pad to my house so that she’s right here with us,” and that has happened quite a few times.

And we have a buyback program. Our pads, unfortunately, are not as inexpensive as we would like them to be. They started off selling for 70,000 a piece, without any changes other than tariffs and cost of goods. They now sell for 133,000, but that’s no addition to our profit.

We are an L3C, which is a low-profit limited liability company. We are mission-based, and our thought was to so that some company couldn’t come and buy our amazingly wonderful idea and then jack up the prices. And so we’re still struggling with our prices. We’d like to lower them. We cannot at this point and stay in business.

We did create a second model called a studio pad. It’s like a studio apartment. It has a kitchenette, no door on the bedroom part, but it’s an accessible bedroom and bathroom. This one has the kitchenette.

Every single pad has a Surehands track that can be used for most lifts, like Hoyer lifts and things like that, and people say, “Oh, but you know, I’m not in a wheelchair. You know, I don’t need that lift.” I said, “That’s okay. You can still live in the pad, and one day if you need it, then it’s there.”

So with that, we have a buyback program, and so far we’ve only been able to buy back one of our 35 placements, because as when Edmund died of ALS, he was one of our first customers. I called Anna and said, “Anna, it’s been a few years since Edmond died. We do have a buyback process. Would you?” “Oh no, honey, this is where I feel closest to Edmund, and the family can have the rest of the house.” Well, last year I called Anna again, but her daughter called me back because Anna’s now living in the pad, and so it keeps growing.

It’s really an exciting time for us when every day in America people experience a sudden accident, diagnosis, or caregiving challenge; they say 10,000 Americans are turning 65 each day, and I had read a statistic that said 87%, but earlier someone said 95% want to age in place, yet less than 1% of our nation’s housing stock is truly wheelchair accessible.

And we believe that no one should lose their independence because their home no longer works for them. And I do not want to see anyone else have to live in the middle of a dining room with no dignity, no privacy, no anything, and they shouldn’t lose their independence because their home no longer works for them.

So we created pads, the personal accessible dwellings that can stand alone or as an ADU to attach to an inaccessible home, making it accessible. And over the last decade, we’ve moved from the concept through to prototype, pilot production, production operations, quality assurance, and we’ve delivered 35 all over the country. We even have one on Cape Cod. We have never been denied a permit. That is something, Ray, that I know happens to a lot of people. But when we work with people, give them all the statistics, all of this, that we have not once been denied a permit for individuals that face spinal cord injuries, ALS, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, aging. What other life-changing events?

We also have a multi-pad. This was built for a school in New Hampshire that we put three pads, the suite pad, under one roof, and each pad has their own personal kitchen right outside the pad but had a communal space.

And so we’ve had a couple of nursing homes or hospitals float the idea of what if we had a multi-pad for five people, in either the suite pad model or the studio pad model that would have, say, a nursing staff or some sort of caregiving staff in the middle for those five different pads that we have not had a call to build yet, but we look forward to it. So our model’s been proven. Our architectural and production drawings get approved by all the different now that different states are requiring third-party inspection along the building path. Our model’s been proven, and now we’re trying to accelerate it to maintain inventory, shorten delivery times, meet the needs of people when they need us most, and so we’re trying to stop building one pad at a time and building for this demand that’s here.

So our goal is straightforward. We just want to deliver more homes, serve more people, create a scalable business. And, as one of our customers recently shared regarding their preteen daughter with cerebral palsy, this addition to our home has made a real difference in their daily life.The first week it was here, she didn’t want to get out of her pad. She was so excited.

So we’re not just building modular homes. We feel that we’re building independence, dignity, and a future where accessible housing is available when and where people need it. So thank you for listening to my little blurb as I build WheelPad, and we feel like we’re assisting in the creation of a world where home remains possible for everyone.

Debbie Howard 49:41

Thank you so much, Julie, and especially for joining us from France, but also for working on this amazing innovation that will solve so many people’s challenges. I love it that you went through the wide variety of use cases. Where WheelPad can help, and you did a great job of showing us the different sizes and even the cost. You do have the buyback program, which is nice because I think it’s important for people to know that you know you could buy one or you could almost lease one. Isn’t that the way it works, Julie?

Linda Sherman 50:20

There is a lease program.

Julie Lineberger 50:22

Yes, we do. We lease it, or to make a lease possible, it’s a six-month minimum. Otherwise, it just doesn’t make sense because you need to build a connector from your home to that. So we lease, but we also sell, and we do have a buyback program.

Debbie Howard 50:35

Excellent. Well, the point is that this is a great option for people. I know someone who had recently brought her 94-year-old mom home with dementia to live in her home, and they created a space within their main home. But a WheelPad could have worked in that situation, and I love the way you described the many, many different use cases that WheelPad can be used for.

Elizabeth White 51:06

One of the things I love is, you know, nursing homes are really expensive. Even the assisted living is really expensive, and that this gives, you know, an affordable, a much more affordable option to people and can keep families together.

Julie Lineberger 51:28

That’s our tagline: keeping families together. And it’s from people who just, you know, they don’t want to drive out to a nursing home. They want the people to be closer together. And the other people that we’ve sold to, they end up using it for a second room, or it’s now when their nieces and nephews come; that’s where they stay. So it becomes an investment for the family.

Debbie Howard 51:52

You could even put a caregiver in one if you, let’s say, you had a situation where you were a caregiver, but you needed a professional caregiver on site as well. You could even use it that way.

Julie Lineberger 52:07

Absolutely, people have talked about that. They’ve never done it. I’ve had parents say that they’re going to go live in the pad and leave the house to the caregiver and the kids. Yeah, I would take the pad.

Debbie Howard 52:21

I would take the pad.

Julie Lineberger 52:23

So, if anyone’s curious to what it looks like, wheelpad.com, w h e e l p a d.com to get an idea of what we’re talking about, because Joseph designed this for with our godson involved in mind. He was 26. Actually, his accident was four days before his 26th birthday. So he designed it to be the coolest room in the house, with LED strip lights that you can change color. And it just—it is not meant to be a hospital, but to be, in Joseph’s words, the coolest room in the house.

Debbie Howard 52:57

And thank you, Julie, for mentioning that. If you look in the show notes, you’ll see a few resources under Julie’s website and other details, and you can actually see a link to a story that has a video clip in it that gives you a really good idea of how wonderful the WheelPad looks inside. It is super cool.

Ray Gordon 53:21

Julie, I have a couple of quick questions for you. First of all, you have 35 out there. Do you have the ability to scale up construction and manufacture these, and where are they made?

Julie Lineberger 53:31

Yes, we do. Right now, we have in-house production that can produce between three and four pads a month. We also have three contract manufacturers: one in Florida, one in North Adams, Massachusetts, and one in New Windsor, New York, that can also build for us.

The one in New York can build up to 10 at a time. The one in Massachusetts they build two at a time, but they’d like to scale up. And the people in Florida are building two at a time until we’re ready for them to scale up, and they’ll move to a larger facility.

So we do have. We’ve spent the last year really focusing on our production for that reason. Prior people had to wait sometimes three to four five months. Now we have pads always ready. It takes people about two to three weeks, sometimes four, depending on where they are, to get their permit. The minute they have their permit, we ship it out to them. Not all areas require permits, so when that happens, they can call up and say, “Hey, we want this. We’re not going to look for a permit. How soon can you ship it?” And I can say tomorrow.

Ray Gordon 54:43

Are these mounted on some kind of foundation, or they stay mobile?

Julie Lineberger 54:49

They are built on a chassis that was specifically designed for them. And people can either keep them on the chassis if they think it’s going to be a permanent addition to their home, which many are, we recommend using helical piers. They’re built to come off the chassis. Some people say no, it’s going to be temporary, and I’ll just then give it back to you. So it’s really up to the customer if they want to put it on a foundation or helical piers. We don’t recommend the foundations, but we had one guy that says, “Look, if my mother-in-law is going to be living with me, I need a wine cellar. So I’m putting it on a wine cellar underneath.” So it’s really up to the customer.

Ray Gordon 55:31

Yeah, the reason I ask that is because a lot of local regulations would consider a mobile home and not an addition. An ADU might have requirements for being more permanent. I’m just looking at it as a possibility for lots of other potential uses as ADUs or using them as additions to houses that are permanent in nature. So I asked a question: Can these be fit into a container? The sizing looks like it might.

Julie Lineberger 55:56

You know, we haven’t tried to fit it into a container. I don’t know.

Ray Gordon 56:01

Okay, thank you. Because, I mean, it’s got the dimensions where if you put two of them side by side, you can actually have sort of an interesting space for a complete ADU unit.

Julie Lineberger 56:11

I’m like the admin kind of person, but has all the specs on the website, and you probably know the interior size of a container, and if that’s true, I’m going to ask Joseph to look that up so I can add that to my spiel.

Ray Gordon 56:26

Yeah, because I think if you started looking at scaling up, you probably dropped the price a little bit just on economies of scale. But it’s a great idea. The only other question I had was, how have you been able to get this through various different buildings departments? Because I know that here it’s sort of onerous to be able to get something approved, and it’s sort of curious. I mean, is it because you have a focus on accessible units, and that makes it more palatable to local?

Julie Lineberger 56:52

I think so. I think that’s the case. But like I said, we even had one that was accepted on Cape Cod. We work with our customers to make sure that they have all the information. We go to the board meetings if needed for zoning or whatever, and we have just never been denied.

Ray Gordon 57:11

That’s great. Thank you very much.

Linda Sherman 57:12

I’m sure that WheelPad service to society and your L3C status has to help with getting acceptance.

Julie Lineberger 57:23

Well, I’m hoping that’s true. With the L3C status, foundations are permitted to invest in us as part of their program-related investment. But because it’s not throughout the nation, a lot of foundations haven’t reached that point that they do some giving.

We did have one family foundation who gave us a good chunk of money so that we could create what we call Peter’s program. That, rather than the price that we need to, to cover, we can lease these for 30% of a person’s income so that they do not lose all their other benefits, like we couldn’t give one away, for example, or just give free lease because then they’d lose their other benefits.

So we’re looking for other people who might donate to that program so we can provide more for Peter’s program, or just come into the WheelPad family as an investor or a donor. We have a number of people who don’t want to go through the investment wriggle roll and give us money, and that helps us keep our prices low and provide jobs, and this focus on becoming a thought leader for accessibility, because all of us are one breath away from needing an accessible home. And furthermore, someone has said the person who’s going to live to be 150 is already alive on the planet. More people are going to need pads.

Elizabeth White 58:51

Do you have any competitors now? That was one question, and I would think for soldiers, for the military, that this would be very attractive, you know, for people who have spinal injuries, etc.

Julie Lineberger 59:09

I forget what was your first question?

Elizabeth White 59:11

Are there competitors?

Julie Lineberger 59:13

There are people who say they are competitors, but when you really look at Boxable, where they say that, “Oh, this is wheelchair accessible,” it’s not. So there are people that are starting to do similar things to what we’re doing, but no, we do not have any direct competitors.

And yes, we too thought that for injured service members, this would be a great boom, and getting in to be able to advertise to injured service members, the bureaucratic mess that is the VA is difficult.

It took us two years before I finally asked my senator, mr. Bernie Sanders, to say, “Hey, I’ve been trying to get to be a certified contractor for the VA.” Within two weeks, I was, because he intervened.

So we keep trying to go through various other aspects of serving injured service members, and are having a terrible bureaucratic time. So if anyone knows of an insight to getting into being able to serve these families so they can stay together and not have one of their family members at Walter Reed rather than home helping kids with their homework, that would be a mitzvah.

Linda Sherman 1:00:30
Awesome, Julie. We just love your stories and everything that you’ve been able to share with us. We’re going to need to wrap this up. I did want to pick up Ellen Khalifa’s comment from the audience, and thank you for being here today.

Ellen Khalifa says Furnished Finder has been great for some friends of mine in their late 60s. They had an ADU for a parent late in life, and when she passed away, they now rent to nurse practitioner grad students. So thank you very much for sharing that, Ellen, and thank you to our wonderful speakers, Julie, Elizabeth, and Cami, and we hope to see all of you soon.

Thank you for joining us today. This is Linda Sherman, founder of the Rethinking Aging Club. We appreciate your supporting the Rethinking Aging Club podcast by subscribing to our channel. See you next time.