Most single-family homes are not accessible to people with physical disabilities. Now, a public awareness campaign is looking to change that.
The effort launching this week is encouraging so-called “visitability,” the idea that all housing should be accessible to those with disabilities.
At a minimum, this would mean that homes have at least one entrance without any steps, a wheelchair-accessible bathroom on the first floor and doors that are at least 32 inches wide.
“The majority of families live in single-family homes, which are not federally required to adhere to any accessibility standards,” said Kat Taylor, disability rights manager at The Equal Rights Center, a national civil rights group which produced the campaign along with the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights.
“In the long run, these standards would not only guarantee more housing options for people with disabilities, but also assist individuals who acquire disabilities later in life to remain in their homes and age in place,” Taylor said.
Taylor and others behind the campaign are urging builders to integrate visitability standards in all new homes, arguing that such modifications are far cheaper to make when a home is built rather than waiting to retrofit it later. What’s more, they say the need for accessibility is going to increase exponentially in the coming years with 1 in 3 families expected to include an individual with a disability by 2050.
The campaign dubbed “what is WRONG with these pictures?” includes an online game where players are challenged to identify whether or not situations are accessible. The effort also includes a series of bus-stop advertisements in Washington, D.C.
I am stuck in HUD subsidized housing because I cannot find and then afford a standard home. Although I work I do not make enough funding to allow for renting and to own is impossible as a single white disabled woman I am not able to get the assistance required, so they pay over $2200 for me to live in the apt. I am in. Not bright, if homes were available, and the funding accessible to those in my income area it would open up HUD housing to those who require it to start out. Keep up the idea, I pray there will be the option for us to have better and more accessible housing. I have worked on this for over 30 years, options need to be there!
Sorry, but I have to disagree! It’s not possible to make every rental home accessible. The costs of remodeling plus size constraints and potential lawsuits will cause the smaller business owners to go bankrupt and in the end it helps no one. We own one rental home and the way the bathrooms are configured it is not possible to make them larger. Nor is it possible to make the interior doorways 32″ wide. To accommodate those changes would mean the entire interior of the home would have to be gutted and the existing layout completely reconfigured to the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars that we don’t have. My husband and I are both mobility challenged and while we are sympathetic in many regards to the needs of the disabled, to expect all home rental units to be accessible puts an unfair burden on small time rental owners like ourselves. The previous writer already has an accessible apartment but that’s not good enough? And it’s being paid for by American taxpayers (which is where ALL Gov’t funding comes from, BTW!), but that’s not good enough. When is enough enough? All I see here is that disabled small business owners like myself who need this extra little push to our own limited income will soon become victims of this new movement to force rental homes to become fully accessible!