The Fall Happens at Home. The Hazards Were Already There.

Care deacons, solo pastors, and exec pastors with an aging membership. Two volunteers and a phone camera are enough to start. Skip it if almost nobody in the church is over 70, or if the church would rather sell audits than stay in the relationship. Not a substitute for a pastoral visit.

StayHome noticed that families only see the loose rug, the dim hallway, and the missing grab bar after someone is already on the floor. The CDC now puts the count at more than 14 million older adults a year — one in four people 65 and older — and names falls as the leading cause of injury in that age group. The death rate is still climbing.

StayHome's mechanism is almost analog: an assessor photographs the hazards hiding in plain sight, scores each one, names a fix and a cost, then connects the family to someone who will actually do the work. The assessment does not require software. It requires knowing what to look for. StayHome sells a $199–$299 audit and contractor referrals. The distribution they want is already sitting in the church directory: worried adult children, a discharge after a hip, elders who intend to stay home.

For a solo pastor or care deacon, the church already visits. The visit is usually presence, prayer, and a casserole. The bathroom grab bar never makes the notes. What StayHome suggests is keeping the visit and adding a camera and a checklist.

Imagine a Thursday at Margaret's. Two trained volunteers from the care team walk the house with CDC's Check for Safety list, photograph the extension cord under the runner, the stair with no rail, the bulb that burned out in February. They leave a one-page scored list: risk, fix, who can do it, roughly what it costs. A handyman in the congregation does the cheap work that weekend. An occupational therapist gets the medical cases. The result is not a contractor business. It is that Margaret is still in her kitchen in November, and the church showed up before the ambulance.

This is executable mercy before the ER, with a checklist the CDC already wrote. Distinct from "A Pastoral Visit for People Who Can't Come" — that brief is presence. This one is prevention.

• StayHome / IdeaBrowser (ideabrowser.com) — The original mechanism: photograph, score, fix, refer.
• CDC Check for Safety (pdf) — The home checklist. Print this. Don't invent one.
• CDC Older Adult Falls Data (cdc.gov/falls/data-research) — One in four. Leading cause of injury. Updated February 2026.
• CDC STEADI (cdc.gov/steadi) — Screen, assess, intervene. The clinical frame if you later partner with an OT.