Ramps & Repairs

Columbia County Habitat for Humanity’s Ramps and Repairs program provides critical home repairs and ramp construction to residents in need throughout Columbia County. This program is intended to address critical issues that can pose safety or security risks to a home’s inhabitants and allows seniors, veterans, low-income, disabled, and otherwise at-risk residents and families to live in their homes for longer.

Projects are dependent, in part, on available funding which may come from grants, sponsorships and/or homeowner contributions. Homeowners may use IDA Matched Savings for home repairs. You can learn more about the IDA Matched Savings program here.

Step 1: Send in an application

The first step of the process is to determine your eligibility for the program. To do this, you will need to fill out our Ramp and Repair Application. The form asks for some basic information, including proof of household income and an Oregon ID. Criteria for the program is based on the following factors:

• You must own your home (renters do not qualify).
• You must live in Columbia County, Oregon. Find your local Habitat here.
• Your income must be below 60% of the median income.
• You must demonstrate need.

Please contact us to discuss your situation and we will have an application sent to you. We are also available to provide assistance if you need help completing the application. You may also call our office at 971.203.0020. You can view the application by clicking the button below.

Completed applications can be mailed to PO Box 921, St. Helens, OR 97051, or you can drop it off at our office located in the St. Helens Habitat ReStore. Please remember, this application is only meant to determine eligibility. You are not making any commitments at this step of the process.

Step 2: Schedule a site visit

If you are eligible for the program, we will contact you to schedule a site visit to determine the scope of the issue and how to go about addressing it. For example, if you are in need of an access ramp, this visit will allow us to come up with designs and determine what materials will be needed for construction.

Step 3: Contract review

Once we have determined what repairs will be needed, or created a plan for a ramp, we will write up a contract that will go over the scope of the work. You will need to review and sign this before work can get started.

Step 4: Work begins

The final step is to schedule and coordinate a day and time that we can begin working. Habitat relies on local construction volunteers for the majority of our work. The speed to which we can begin work is usually determined by the availability of our volunteers and ongoing construction projects.

If you have any questions, or you would like to learn more about the process, please call our office at 971.203.0020 or email [email protected] for more information.