Accessible housing

Last updated May 08, 2024

Accessible housing refers to the construction or modification (such as through renovation or home modification) of housing to enable independent living for persons with disabilities. Accessibility is achieved through architectural design, but also by integrating accessibility features such as modified furniture, shelves and cupboards, or even electronic devices in the home.

Canada

In Canada, Flexhousing is a concept that encourages homeowners to make renovations that modify their house over time to meet changing accessibility needs. The concept supports the goals of enabling "homeowners to occupy a dwelling for longer periods of time, perhaps over their entire lifetimes, while adapting to changing circumstances and meeting a wide range of needs"; Universal Housing in the United States and Lifetime Homes in the United Kingdom are similar concepts.^[1]

United Kingdom

Great Britain applies the most widespread application of home access to date. In 1999, Parliament passed Section M, an amendment to residential building regulations requiring basic access in all new homes,^[2] but even so in a survey by YouGov in 2019 only 21% of respondents said a wheelchair user would reasonably be able access all areas of their home.^[3]

United States

In the United States, the 1988 Amendments to the Fair Housing Act added people with disabilities, as well as familial status, to the classes already protected by law from discrimination (race, color, gender, religion, creed, and country of origin). Among the protection for people with disabilities in the 1988 Amendments are seven construction requirements for all multifamily buildings of more than four units first occupied after March 13, 1991. These seven requirements are as follows:^[4]

An accessible building entrance on an accessible route,
Accessible common and public use areas,
Doors usable by a person in a wheelchair,
Accessible route into and through the dwelling unit,
Light switches, electrical outlets, thermostats and other environmental controls in accessible locations,
Reinforced walls in bathrooms for later installation of grab bars, and
Usable kitchens and bathrooms.

Access is typically defined within the limits of what a person sitting in a wheelchair is able to reach with arm movement only, with minimal shifting of the legs and torso. Lighting and thermostat controls should not be above and power outlets should not be below the reach of a person in a wheelchair.

Sinks and cooking areas typically need to be designed without cupboards below them, to permit the legs of the wheelchair user to roll underneath, and countertops may be of reduced height to accommodate a sitting rather than standing user. In some cases two food preparation areas may be combined into a single kitchen to permit both standing and wheelchair users.

In spite of these advancements, the housing types where most people in the United States reside – single-family homes – are not covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act, or any other federal law with the exception of the small percentage of publicly funded homes impacted by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. As a result, the great majority of new single-family homes replicate the barriers in existing homes.

Renovations for accessibility

Homeowners may be challenged by the need to find renovators familiar with accessible design issues. The federal government of Canada and the provincial governments work jointly to share the cost of offering reimbursement programs for homeowners in need of house renovations for accessibility.^[5] These programs improve the ability of homeowners to fund house modifications, through renovating existing houses.

Adaptations and accommodations

Many ranch style homes and manufactured homes use a main floor slightly raised above ground level, but have an overall flat layout with either a crawlspace or slightly raised basement below for plumbing, electrical, and heating systems. These homes can be relatively easily modified to accommodate wheelchairs and walkers, with the installation of a long low-rise ramp outside the building, up to the house entrance, placed over the existing stairway. This ramp can then be removed at a later time, reverting to the stairway entrance if the handicapped access is no longer necessary.

Split level homes tend to be designed with multiple internal stairways and half-floor landings inside the building. There may be an entrance area inside the building at ground level, with stairs inside the entrance that immediately go up and down from the ground level. These homes are difficult to accommodate inexpensively since there is often no space available inside the structure to install long sloping wheelchair ramps to access the various floors. It may be possible to retrofit stair lifts into the stairwells or wheelchair lifts into balconies near the stairwell.

Multi-story homes can sometimes be accommodated by installing a private residential elevator, which is usually much less expensive and has fewer design and layout requirements than a full commercial elevator. Homebuilders can in some cases plan for a future residential elevator by designing closet spaces in each floor stacked vertically with the same dimensions and location. At a later time the closet floors and ceilings are removed and the elevator equipment is installed into the open shaft.

Below are some current suggested architectural features of a universally-accessible house:^[6]

Kitchen	Hallways and stairways	Living room / Family room	Bathroom
A side-opening, wall-mounted oven with a pullout board beneath	Hallways should be 1,200 mm (3.9 ft) wide	A doorless entry with no threshold	The bathroom door should be a minimum of 865 mm (34.1 in) wide and open outward to avoid obstructing the limited space inside
Pull-out work boards at varying heights	Stairs should be 1 metre (39 inches) wide and a maximum of 280 mm (11 in) deep	A uniform level throughout the room eliminates abrupt changes that can create trip hazards	Dual lever faucets are easier to use than single lever or ball-type faucets
Knee space left under the sink or a cooktop	The maximum riser height should be 180 mm (7.1 in)	The installation of extra electrical, telephone and cable outlets accommodates technology and provides for maximum flexibility in furniture arrangement	Install non-slip flooring for any area that is prone to getting wet
Pull-out drawers for storage rather than deep shelves	Flights of stairs should be straight with the same number of steps in each flight with a minimum of three and maximum of twelve risers	Light switches should be accessible from a sitting position and one switch should be located at the entrance to the living room	Leave free space on at least one side of the toilet for improved access

Aging in place and accessibility

A growing trend among senior citizens is to "age in place", reflecting a desire to retain independence for as long as possible. Adaptations for seniors take into account the most common physical impairments affecting the elderly. For example, a common cause of serious injury for seniors is falling inside the home. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury and the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospital admissions among older adults.
Falls result in more than 2.8 million injuries treated in emergency departments annually, including over 800,000 hospitalizations and more than 27,000 deaths.
In 2015, the total cost of fall injuries was $50 billion. Medicare and Medicaid shouldered 75% of these costs.
The financial toll for older adult falls is expected to increase as the population ages and may reach $67.7 billion by 2020.^[7]
Bathrooms commonly are believed to be a particularly hazardous location.^[8]

Adding handrails and grab bars throughout the home, particularly in bathrooms and along stairways, helps reduce the risk of falling. Other adaptations that improve accessibility for seniors include: easy-to-reach work and storage areas in the kitchen; reaching devices to grab objects on high shelves; lever handles on doors; accessible toilets; toilet seat risers; walk-in showers; and bathtub and shower seats.

Alzheimer disease and housing adaptations

Alzheimer disease presents specific challenges for caregivers, who need to make the home as accessible as possible to the elderly resident, while keeping safety features in mind. Removable stove switch knobs, locks on kitchen cabinets, electric kettles with automatic shut-off,^[9] and adding lighting to eliminate shadows in the house can all help caregivers to reduce dangers to the person with Alzheimer disease. Other features that can improve the well-being of the elderly person can include marking doors with conspicuous and distinct signs or objects such as ribbons or wreaths, can assist memory. Adding a cot or bed to the main floor of the house to allow the elderly person to rest without climbing stairs to a bedroom can be helpful to the Alzheimer patient. Furniture and clutter can also be removed to make the house more safe for an elderly person inclined to pace or wander.^[10]

Related Research Articles

Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design and practice of accessible development ensures both "direct access" and "indirect access" meaning compatibility with a person's assistive technology.

The concept of home improvement, home renovation or remodeling is the process of renovating, making improvements or making additions to one's home. Home improvement can consist of projects that upgrade an existing home interior, exterior or other improvements to the property. Home improvement projects can be carried out for a number of different reasons; personal preference and comfort, maintenance or repair work, making a home bigger by adding rooms/spaces, as a means of saving energy, or to improve safety.

Universal design is the design of buildings, products or environments to make them accessible to people, regardless of age, disability or other factors. It emerged as a rights-based, anti-discrimination measure, which seeks to create design for all abilities. Evaluating material and structures that can be utilized by all. It addresses common barriers to participation by creating things that can be used by the maximum number of people possible. “When disabling mechanisms are to be replaced with mechanisms for inclusion, different kinds of knowledge are relevant for different purposes. As a practical strategy for inclusion UD involves dilemmas and often difficult priorities.” Curb cuts or sidewalk ramps, which are essential for people in wheelchairs but also used by all, are a common example of universal design.

Bramalea GO Station is a GO Transit railway and bus station along the Kitchener line in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. It is located at 1713 Steeles Avenue East, near the community of Bramalea at Steeles Avenue East and Bramalea Road.

Holmes on Homes is a Canadian television series featuring general contractor Mike Holmes visiting homeowners who are in need of help, mainly due to unsatisfactory home renovations performed by hired contractors.

Housing in Japan includes modern and traditional styles. Two patterns of residences are predominant in contemporary Japan: the single-family detached house and the multiple-unit building, either owned by an individual or corporation and rented as apartments to tenants, or owned by occupants. Additional kinds of housing, especially for unmarried people, include boarding houses, dormitories, and barracks.

Marc Harrison, was an industrial designer and educator whose work aligned with the idea of universal design that makes products easier to use for people with disabilities as well as people without disabilities.

Multifamily residential, also known as multidwelling unit (MDU)) is a classification of housing where multiple separate housing units for residential inhabitants are contained within one building or several buildings within one complex. Units can be next to each other (side-by-side units), or stacked on top of each other (top and bottom units). Common forms include apartment building and condominium, where typically the units are owned individually rather than leased from a single building owner. Many intentional communities incorporate multifamily residences, such as in cohousing projects.

Visitability is the design approach for new housing such that anyone who uses a wheelchair or other mobility device should be able to visit. A social visit requires the ability to get into the house, to pass through interior doorways, and enter a bathroom to use the toilet. Visitability stresses specific accessibility features from a social reform perspective, and counters social isolation.

Grab bars are safety devices designed to enable a person to maintain balance, lessen fatigue while standing, hold some of their weight while maneuvering, or have something to grab onto in case of a slip or fall. A caregiver may use a grab bar to assist with transferring a patient from one place to another. A worker may use a grab bar to hold on to as he or she climbs, or in case of a fall.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines aging in place as "the ability to live in one's own home and community safely, independently, and comfortably, regardless of age, income, or ability level".

Accessible toilets are toilets that have been specially designed to better accommodate people with physical disabilities. Persons with reduced mobility find them useful, as do those with weak legs, as a higher toilet bowl makes it easier for them to stand up. Additional measures that can be taken to add accessibility to a toilet include providing more space, adding grab bars to ease transfer to and from the toilet seat, and providing extra room for a caregiver if necessary. Some countries have requirements concerning the accessibility of public toilets. Toilets in private homes can be modified (retrofitted) to increase accessibility.

A wheelchair lift, also known as a platform lift, or vertical platform lift, is a fully powered device designed to raise a wheelchair and its occupant in order to overcome a step or similar vertical barrier.

Girlguiding Ulster is one of the nine regions of Girlguiding UK. Its headquarters are at Lorne House, County Down. In 2006, there were approximately 500 units across Northern Ireland.

A wheelchair is a mobilized form of chair using 2 or more wheels, a footrest and armrest usually cushioned. It is used when walking is difficult or impossible to do due to illnesses, injury, disabilities, or age related health conditions.

Accessible bathtubs are bathtubs that can be used by people with limited mobility, disabilities, and the elderly. A bathtub can be made accessible for some people by the addition of grab bars or hand grips, or through the use of lifts that lower and raise the bather in the water. Other bathtubs have been specially designed for accessibility. These may include walk-in bathtubs, tubs with built-in transfer benches, or, more recently, tubs with raised beds and sliding doors to allow for a seated transfer.

High-floor describes the interior flooring of commuter vehicles primarily used in public transport such as trains, light rail cars and other rail vehicles, along with buses and trolleybuses. Interior floor height is generally measured above the street surface or above the top of the rail. High-floor designs usually result from packaging requirements: mechanical items such as axles, motors, crankshafts, and/or transmissions, or luggage storage spaces are traditionally placed under the interior floor of these vehicles. The term is used in contrast with low-floor designs, which offer a decreased floor and entry height above the street surface. Since low-floor designs generally were developed after high-floor vehicles, the older high-floor design is sometimes also known as conventional or the “traditional” design.

P2 is the abbreviation for a type of residential panel building found in former East Germany. The P stands for parallel and refers to load-bearing walls arranged parallel to wall surfaces. 2 denotes the arrangement of two stairways in a building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">M10 (panel building)</span>

M10 is a type of a residential panel building in East Germany. The M stands for Magdeburg where they have been built since the early 1970s.

The physical accessibility of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)'s public transit network, serving the New York metropolitan area, is incomplete. Although all buses are wheelchair-accessible in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), much of the MTA's rail system was built before wheelchair access was a requirement under the ADA. This includes the MTA's rapid transit systems, the New York City Subway and Staten Island Railway, and its commuter rail services, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and Metro-North Railroad. Consequently, most stations were not designed to be accessible to people with disabilities, and many MTA facilities lack accessible announcements, signs, tactile components, and other features.

References

↑ "What is Flexhousing(TM)?". Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Archived from the original on May 2, 2008. Retrieved August 26, 2012.
↑ "Doors to Be Swept Away in New Rules for Builders", Rachel Kelley, The Times, December 5, 1997.
↑ "Poll reveals 'shocking state' of British homes due to poor access". Homecare Insight. 16 September 2019. Retrieved 3 November 2019.
↑ Fair Housing First, a website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
↑ "Home Adaptations for Seniors' Independence". Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Archived from the original on June 10, 2013. Retrieved August 26, 2012.
↑ "FlexHousing(TM) features a room-by-room demonstration". Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Archived from the original on May 3, 2008. Retrieved August 26, 2012.
↑ "Falls Prevention Facts". NCOA. 2015-06-03. Retrieved 2019-09-03.
↑ "Nonfatal Bathroom Injuries Among Persons Aged ≥15 Years --- United States, 2008". www.cdc.gov. Retrieved 2019-09-03.
↑ "Safety in the kitchen". Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Archived from the original on June 10, 2013. Retrieved August 26, 2012.
↑ "Pacing, wandering and confusion". Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Archived from the original on June 11, 2013. Retrieved August 26, 2012.

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[1] "What is Flexhousing(TM)?". Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Archived from the original on May 2, 2008. Retrieved August 26, 2012.

[2] "Doors to Be Swept Away in New Rules for Builders", Rachel Kelley, The Times, December 5, 1997.

[3] "Poll reveals 'shocking state' of British homes due to poor access". Homecare Insight. 16 September 2019. Retrieved 3 November 2019.

[4] Fair Housing First, a website sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

[5] "Home Adaptations for Seniors' Independence". Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Archived from the original on June 10, 2013. Retrieved August 26, 2012.

[6] "FlexHousing(TM) features a room-by-room demonstration". Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Archived from the original on May 3, 2008. Retrieved August 26, 2012.

[7] "Falls Prevention Facts". NCOA. 2015-06-03. Retrieved 2019-09-03.

[8] "Nonfatal Bathroom Injuries Among Persons Aged ≥15 Years --- United States, 2008". www.cdc.gov. Retrieved 2019-09-03.

[9] "Safety in the kitchen". Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Archived from the original on June 10, 2013. Retrieved August 26, 2012.

[10] "Pacing, wandering and confusion". Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Archived from the original on June 11, 2013. Retrieved August 26, 2012.

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