TruBlue Franchise Owner Builds a Business for Seniors Aging in Place

For years, Adriana Sosa and Manuel Trejo built houses and sold them fast, riding a market that once moved so quickly a house would sell before it was even finished. When that market slowed and a finished house sat without a buyer, the pace their business depended on stopped working. Around the same time, Sosa watched her grandparents struggle with the everyday realities of staying in their own home, often over small, fixable things like a missing grab bar or a step that had become dangerous.

Those two experiences pointed in the same direction. Sosa and Trejo already knew how to build. They needed a way to use that experience in something steadier and more personal, and TruBlue Home Service Ally answered both.

“The senior element was the real turning point for us,” Sosa said. TruBlue’s emphasis on helping seniors stay safely and independently in their homes set it apart for Sosa and Trejo. The couple also saw franchising as a way to bring more structure and support to the kind of business they already knew how to run.

Adriana Sosa: I’m a graphic designer, and my husband, Manuel, is an architect. We started building houses together to sell them. Eventually, we wanted to move into renovation but weren’t quite sure how to get there. When we started looking into franchising, we came across TruBlue, which combined renovation with everyday handyman work in a way we like. For us, it meant helping seniors stay in their homes while continuing to do the work we enjoyed.

1851: What did you do before franchising, and how did you decide franchising made sense for you?

Sosa: Before this, my husband and I were somewhat retired. We weren’t doing physical work ourselves anymore, but we were still investing in building houses to sell. We still had energy and wanted to do something.

The housing market also began to slow. Before, a house would sell before we even finished building it, but one day we ended up with a house that just wasn’t selling, and that’s when we realized this may not be sustainable long-term. We wanted to find a business that was recession- and AI-proof.

I also saw my grandparents getting older and saw the need for services like TruBlue firsthand. We could help make modifications so seniors feel safe and comfortable in their own homes. After that, letting grandparents stay in their homes longer became part of our decision.

What I want people to know is that the support and coaching this franchise offers is actually there, and that a franchise structure is valuable even if you already have the basics of running a company down. If we’d known how much support we’d receive from TruBlue, we would have bought into the franchise a lot sooner.

Sosa: When it came time to choose, it was the senior element that was the turning point for us. There are a lot of different handyman franchises out there, and most of them do good work, but it was about more than that for us. Very few are actually built around helping older adults stay safe and independent in their own homes.

With TruBlue, that’s what pulled us in. After watching my own grandparents get older, I realized just how much a lot of their independence came down to small structural things that just needed to be fixed without waiting for months. TruBlue stood out to us because it addresses that need directly, not just general home repair.

Everyone we’ve met who’s involved with this franchise felt the same: that they’re genuinely trying to help others, and that mattered to us. Helping seniors stay in the homes they love is something we already cared about, and now we get to make it our business.

Sosa: Right now, our focus is just opening well. We’re bringing in our first leads this week and are planning to be fully operational by Aug 24. We’ll be serving Stone Oak, Shavano Park, Timberwood Park, Hill Country Village, and Hollywood Park. After that, we want to keep building on what we’re already seeing, like how many small, specific things go into making a home safer. Every modification we make genuinely improves the quality of someone’s daily life, and we want to keep doing exactly that across our current territory as we continue to grow.

Sosa: Owning this franchise has already changed our lives in a way my husband and I didn’t expect. We’re not originally from San Antonio, and we didn’t have much of a community here before joining TruBlue. But now we’ve made real friendships with other owners who have offered us so much support, and it’s meant a lot more to us than we anticipated. The people are exceptional, and the satisfaction of helping others is real. My only regret is we didn’t take the leap sooner.

TruBlue Home Service Ally® provides a unique and affordable approach to helping busy adults and seniors live a worry-free life by offering trustworthy handyman, home maintenance and senior modification services. Helping you maintain your home both inside and out, TruBlue’s services include handyman projects and to-do list chores, preventative home maintenance programs, kitchen and bath remodels, seasonal work and senior modification services, all handled by professional, bonded and insured Tru-Pro® Technicians. TruBlue franchise owners are required to complete senior home safety certification programs through the NAHB and Age Safe America.

As certified specialists, TruBlue franchisees are able to perform aging-in-place home safety assessments and can make recommended safety modifications as needed.