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I’ve been thinking a lot about housing in terms of people who have Long Covid & complications. Following onset of my autoimmune disease (after a virus) my apt was inaccessible & unliveable for me. Adaptable/accessible matters bc #Housing matters https://twitter.com/cmhc_ca/status/1328337031055872001
People who rent are at a particular disadvantage when their housing becomes inaccessible to them. Loans, grants and various charities can assist with reno costs for homeowners. Renters must simply move. At the early stages (when I was using a walker) I was renovicted.
So I was having a health crisis and a housing crisis simultaneously - but it was only the first of each. The result was moving to apt that was almost double rent when a two income household had become one income. Then when that income left it meant no apt at all.
If I had not been in hospital at the time I would have been homeless - in reality I was. But even minus the economics all but living room were inaccessible to me. The headrest & footrest on wheelchair had to be removed to fit on elevator.
My point is, for decades disabled people have been saying we need to design housing to be adaptable and we need a larger supply of accessible housing. Not only have we been ignored but there has been the whole micro apt trendy thing which can’t be adapted or made accessible.
As with everything about what Covid is "revealing" about our society to some people, a good portion of us were already highly aware and if we had been listened to then, things would be different now. But here we are.
If it were up to me every developer who has profited from building inaccessible housing (which is all of them) would be made to contribute to the building of accessible/adaptable and truly deeply affordable housing. Change the building code NOW - see @RogerPGervais about this
We also need a broader conversation about what accessible housing means. Wheelchair accessibility is one part of it but even for a wheelchair user the most wheelchair accessible apt may not actually be a truly accessible apt.
Let me explain...
Let me explain...
FIrst of all the majority of disabled people have more than one disability. I have multiple. So even if my apt addressed my wheelchair accessibility needs - which my current 'wheelchair adapted in name only' apt does not - it still would not meet all my accessibility needs.
But more than that I have long asked the question why we separate housing based on age - 'seniors buildings - and why we design 'family' apts to mean two parents and children. (One large bedroom & then 1 or 2 much smaller bedrooms).
Disabled kids? What about multi-generational?
A child who is a wheelchair user needs a bedroom they can move around in.
Why are we literally forcing people to live in 'nuclear family' arrangements? What about those who don't want grandma in a nursing home? Or alone?
A child who is a wheelchair user needs a bedroom they can move around in.
Why are we literally forcing people to live in 'nuclear family' arrangements? What about those who don't want grandma in a nursing home? Or alone?
Not only has govt failed to move forward on the most basic accessibility designs for housing, we have not had nearly the range of thinking needed on what accessible/adapted housing means.
If you have stayed in a major hotel it's entirely possible you have stayed in a wheelchair adapted hotel room without knowing it. They book regular guests in those because it is perfectly functional for you too.
If we put counters on hydraulics and gave up the bs marketing romanticism of micro, we could build apts that could be rented to almost anyone - and easily adapted to meet different and/or changing accessibility needs.
No doubt govt will argue this is a crisis & no time to consider these things.
Just someone for the luv of gawd please realize thus thinking designs crisis in perpetuity. They keep building inaccessible, unaffordable, unsustainble, unliveable housing that literally create crisis
Just someone for the luv of gawd please realize thus thinking designs crisis in perpetuity. They keep building inaccessible, unaffordable, unsustainble, unliveable housing that literally create crisis
