Creative Commons
Housing in Chicago, Illinois.
Max Togisala, an eighteen-year-old from Utah, wiped out while skiing earlier this year. He sustained a spinal cord injury and became a wheelchair user, which meant that his family home was suddenly inaccessible for him because of the stairs at the entrance and inside. So people in Togisala’s community designed, raised funds for, and built an accessible wing on the house so he could live as independently as possible.
I see a lot of news stories like this: A local person becomes disabled, and their neighbors rally around them and raise money to make accessibility modifications to their home or build them a new one. The media eat these stories up because they fit within the feel-good genre of disability coverage where there’s always a happy ending. (It’s especially heartwarming when the newly disabled person is a military veteran who was wounded while defending our freedom.)
A lot of disabled people know what it’s like to be denied housing on account of their disabilities, and, because this discrimination is not always overt, it can be difficult to successfully appeal.
Of course, it’s good when neighbors get together to help each other through tough times. But there are tons of stories like these that don’t have a happy ending—and thus don’t get the same attention.
For every story like Togisala’s, there are probably a hundred more of disabled people who are in desperate need of accessible housing, but instead of their families and communities helping them find a suitable living space, they remain trapped and without options.
And it isn’t just a matter of individual motivation. Even if someone has the time and energy to do whatever it takes to find and secure accessible housing, it can be like searching for a chartreuse unicorn. There simply isn’t much accessible housing out there because things like no-step entrances and wider doorways are still seen as “specialty features” rather than basic necessities, and are not automatically part of all home designs.
As a result, new, single-family houses are constructed every day that are inaccessible to people who can’t easily climb stairs. This is all about stigma. Homes that are obviously accessible are still so beyond the norm that they are often seen by homebuilders, realtors, and homebuyers as negatively conspicuous and of lesser value.
And I haven’t even mentioned affordability yet. Everyone who’s looked for a place to live knows how much cost can narrow your options. When accessibility is as indispensable as affordability, imagine how much more difficult that can make it to find something that’s even passable.
Another obstacle is good old-fashioned housing discrimination. A lot of disabled people know what it’s like to be denied housing on account of their disabilities, and, because this discrimination is not always overt, it can be difficult to successfully appeal.
Here in Illinois, Governor J. B. Pritzker recently signed a law that makes it illegal for anyone to be denied housing based on their source of income. That means that if someone has enough money to pay the rent, they can’t be turned away just because their income comes from something other than a job, such as a government rent subsidy voucher or Social Security.
It’s no accident that affordable, accessible housing is so hard to obtain. We must all remember that disabled people need and deserve good housing just as much as everyone else. Maybe that will bring about a radical reimagining of what the basic elements of secure and comfortable housing must be. If it takes passing more laws that mandate inclusive housing design and fair treatment for those seeking housing to comprehensively address this crisis, then that’s what has to be done.
Disabled people who don’t have the housing they need shouldn’t have to rely on the generosity of neighbors to bail them out.