Image description: New international access icon. A white figure on square blue background with rounded edges representing a disabled person actively propelling their wheelchair.
Image credit: Sara Hendren & Brian Glenney
Image source: http://www.accessibleicon.org
Each of us knows we are not our friends’ and families’ number one priority. Important, yes. Top of the list, no. Most of us, though, don’t have to face the evidence of a loved one’s blatant disregard for our comfort, safety, and well-being every time we approach their home. As person who uses a wheelchair, I do.
Every time a friend or family member buys, builds, or rents a place I can’t enter, they cut out a piece of my heart. They add to the vast and escalating segregation of my life. I feel unseen, unimportant, and unwelcome. Every time it happens a less-than-lovely voice in my head whispers, Well, that’s not a very smart choice. Don’t you understand that as you age/have babies/grow your circle of friends, you and they will be grateful for universal design. Universal design works for everyone, in every stage of their life. That voice might be less than lovely, but it’s not wrong.
When you break a leg or have surgery on your knee, you’ll be glad you don’t have to try hop up those steps with no rail to hang onto. I’ll be glad, too. When your child brings their baby over, you’ll be glad neither of you has to haul that buggy up the steps. I’ll be glad, too. When it comes time to sell, and you have multiple bids because in addition to the usual real-estate hungry first-time buyers you’ll have all those whose choices are usually severely limited by the availability of accessible space—crips, old people, people with small children, and smart people with friends and relatives—you’ll be very, very glad. Supply and demand, baby. Universal design is a good investment.
Disabled people are 20% of the population. You know one of us whether you realise it or not. Why aren’t you paying attention? Why aren’t you being smart? Universal design is good for you, your friends, and your bank account. Also, it makes me glad; it heals my heart.
Nicola Griffith 
As usual, an honest, thought provoking, to the point, intelligent piece of writing
Siobhan
Thank you for this post.
I wonder what it would take here in the USA to convince the central house listing folks that they need to make it easier to identify homes for sale that are accessible? I recently helped a friend house hunt for something single level (or at least with a main level master and bath) that had a zero step entry. It was not easy. We spent a lot of time examining photos to try and figure out if the entrances were accessible. In the age of so much data, it should be easier to identify these homes once you are committed to choosing one.
@Siobhan: Thanks.
@jkramersmyth: It would be so very easy, yes. But what it will take is to show listing companies metrics: if you have no-step entry, you can make a bigger profit. Once people know that, they’ll add it as a desirable feature. They might even start adding, “Easy to retrofit to level-entry” or some such.
Adding to my To Do list to dig down into the nitty gritty details of Multiple Listing Services ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service ) and the Real Estate Transaction Standard ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Estate_Transaction_Standard ) upon which most MLS systems in the US are based. The fact that there is a central standards setting organization who might be swayed into at least adding the attributes one would need to capture “level-entry” information is tantalizing. If the attribute is already there – then the push can go directly to showing the listing companies that there is a demand as you point out above. Again – thank you for your post!!
@jkramersmyth: That would be fabulous! Let me know if I can get behind and push…
Not all people are disabled in the same way. When we were house hunting twenty years ago, our priority was my accessibility issues. I have both physical issues and anxiety issues. We wanted to be close to a bus stop, in a neighborhood with sidewalks, and on a route with less than a twenty minute bus trip to my doctor, my job, etc. I panic more the longer I’m on the bus and can only handle so much. I can’t drive and won’t ever be able to. We were at the bottom of the housing market in terms of what we could afford and looked for more than a year before we found the place we bought.
There are a lot of choices people make that block people from visiting. We can’t visit my mother because she has dogs. We can’t visit my father because his wife smokes. We can’t visit anyone who has cats. The dogs are a problem for my daughter. The smoking and cats are things that would put me in the ER.
@Anne: I hear you. I wish every house/apartment on the planet was close to good public transport with excellent sidewalks. We can’t control what people choose to do when they’re in a home but the building codes would be a very good place to start. Just as it’s now mandatory to put straps around a water heater and bolt the house to the foundation in earthquake country, for new construction we should mandate level access.
Heartbreakingly, yet beautifully said. This hits home for me, since my mother and many members of my family suffer from disability. I’m finding myself getting less mobile as I age. Thank you for voicing and sharing our concerns.
We bought a portable ramp for the new home. Not the perfect solution but at least a start. For those who want to do the same, they are less than $100.
@farah: We have one, too. It’ll stay in place until we can afford the major renovation that is raising the driveway three inches…