Army veteran Seth Wakeling spent years wheeling through a cramped second-story apartment, clipping door frames and bruising his hands and walls just trying to move through his own home. Last Saturday, that changed when he and his wife Adriana received the keys to a brand-new, mortgage-free custom home in Fallbrook built specifically around his wheelchair and prosthetic leg.
Wakeling lost his leg after stepping on an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2013, according to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. He now uses a prosthetic leg along with a wheelchair, and the outlet reports he had long been unable to navigate his old apartment without hitting door frames and injuring his hands or the walls around him. The nonprofit Homes For Our Troops stepped in to build the new residence, which includes wider doorways, bathroom grab bars, and doors that open and close automatically, allowing Wakeling to move more safely and independently.
More detail on Wakeling's injury has surfaced from the nonprofit itself: he enlisted in the Army in 2012 and served as a combat engineer with Alpha Company, Special Troops Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, sustaining a traumatic brain injury along with the severe foot injuries that led to his amputation when he stepped on the device on September 26, 2013, per Homes For Our Troops. Seth and Adriana Wakeling have three sons — Jeremiah, Isaac and Benjamin — and the family's new home includes multiple bedrooms, stainless steel appliances, and a spacious kitchen, FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News reports.
Why the Family Chose Fallbrook
The Wakelings picked Fallbrook for several reasons: the hilly terrain reminded them of Montana, the area offers year-round sunshine, it keeps them close to family in Orange County, and North San Diego County has a strong community of military veterans near Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, according to Village News. Homes For Our Troops allows recipient veterans to choose where in the country they want to settle, and the Wakelings settled on this corner of North County.
The project came together over several months with heavy community involvement. Construction officially kicked off with a ceremony at Fallbrook VFW Post 1924 on May 2, followed by a volunteer landscaping day and the formal key presentation on October 17, per the same account from Village News. The home itself was being built by local contractor Youngren Construction, an HFOT builder; the firm had completed 39 specially adapted homes in partnership with Homes For Our Troops.
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A Family's Gratitude and a Veteran's Relief
Adriana Wakeling said the home gives her husband greater freedom and reduces his daily challenges, and she thanked Homes For Our Troops for the gift, FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News reported. Seth Wakeling said he was grateful for the opportunity to live more comfortably in a home designed around his needs, a sentiment echoed throughout the handover covered by the station.
Homes For Our Troops, founded in 2004, has now completed 449 specially adapted homes across 46 states, according to the organization's Madalyn Collins as cited by FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News. The nonprofit builds these homes for severely injured post-9/11 veterans at no cost to the recipients, and it backs up the handover with three years of pro bono professional financial planning for every family — support that has contributed to 82% of recipient families reporting increased savings and 62% reporting reduced debt after moving in, per Homes For Our Troops data.
A Broader Push to House Disabled Veterans
The nonprofit's own internal survey findings also show that community volunteering among recipient veterans jumps from 25% before receiving an adapted home to 85% afterward, suggesting that barrier-free housing frees up more than just physical mobility. Homes For Our Troops maintains an 87.6% program spending ratio out of a $46 million budget and holds top ratings from Charity Navigator and CharityWatch, according to Charities for Veterans.
Federal support exists alongside private efforts like this one. For fiscal year 2026, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Specially Adapted Housing grant program offers up to $126,526 to help qualifying severely disabled veterans build or modify accessible homes, according to VA Loan Network. Nationally, veteran homelessness has fallen to 32,495 people as of January 2025, a 56.1% reduction since 2010 and the lowest count since federal tracking began in 2009, per the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Even so, Homes For Our Troops reports that more than 1,800 post-9/11 service members who returned from combat with life-altering injuries still need specially adapted custom homes nationwide — a gap that makes the Wakelings' new Fallbrook home one small but meaningful piece of a much larger effort still underway.
