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Photo courtesy of Concrete Change.
Housing that builds in freedom
"Visitability" is a growing trend nationwide. The term refers to single-family or owner-occupied housing designed in such a way that it can be lived in or visited by people who have trouble with steps or who use wheelchairs or walkers.
A house is visitable when it meets three basic requirements:
- one zero-step entrance.
- doors with 32 inches of clear passage space.
- one bathroom on the main floor you can get into in a wheelchair.
"When someone builds a home, they're not just building it for themselves -- that home's going to be around for 100 years," Concrete Change founder Eleanor Smith told The New York Times. "These things hurt nobody -- and they help a lot of other people."
This site will provide some resources and background on visitability.
Visitability: becoming a national trend?
"One day in 1986 I was driving around in Atlanta, Georgia, my home city, and I passed though a large development of new homes," says Eleanor Smith, founder of the U.S. visitability movement. "As always, these homes had steps at every entrance." But on that day, for some reason, Smith found herself looking at the houses differently. "I thought, 'These homes could have all had access!' " READ MORE from Ragged Edge Online.
Principles & beginnings
Freedom to come and go. Freedom to live in safety. Every home rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina should give people this simple guarantee.
All housing -- all housing -- built after Katrina should have three simple features:
- one zero-step entrance.
- doors with 32 inches of clear passage space.
- one bathroom on the main floor you can get into in a wheelchair.
Cost of these items in new construction is negligible, say experts.
 Never again should people be trapped in their homes, unable to escape to safety. Federal and state officials must ensure that basic access features are built into all new housing.
Temporary housing being erected needs these features too.
"It is nothing short of a crime that people like wheelchair user Benilda Caixeta were trapped in their homes, unable to escape," said Marcie Roth, CEO of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association. "We must build every new home with basic features that let people get in and out."
"Inaccessible houses keep us from entering or leaving on our own," says Eleanor Smith of Concrete Change. "It's illogical to scramble to retrofit existing homes for access and then build new homes with new barriers after the hurricane."
"Current housing stock is woefully deficient in meeting the needs of people with mobility impairments," says architect Dr. Edward Steinfeld, Director of the IDEA Center at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
11,000 visitable homes now in Tucson area
Pima County in 2006 holds the U.S. record for the most visitable homes in any one area, thanks to its Inclusive Home Design Ordinance. MORE.
Reporter Alex Cukan looks at home access
Cukan's 10-part series examines the problems we face as a nation in failing to include basic access in homes, and future trends. MORE
Inclusive Home Design Act
"It defies logic to build new homes that block people out when it's so easy and cheap to build new homes that let people in. " -- Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D. -IL). READ ABOUT the federal Inclusive Home Design Act.
Visitability needs in the Gulf Coast
Nearly four of every 10 people who did not evacuate their homes in advance of Hurricane Katrina have said they were either
- physically unable to leave their homes or
- were caring for a disabled person.
This information comes from a survey conducted of evacuees by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health. (Read more here.)
A disproportionate number of the Hurricane survivors are people with disabilities," says the National Council on Disability, a federal agency. "In New Orleans, 23.2 percent of residents are people with disabilities. This means that there are 102,122 people with disabilities 5 years of age and older who live in New Orleans.
Who are the 102,122 people with disabilities who live in New Orleans? About 10 percent (or 12,000) of them are people ages 5 to 20 years old; 61 percent (or 63,000) of them are aged 21 to 64 years old; and 29 percent (or 27,000) of the people are 65 years of age and older.
The 102,122 people with disabilities living in New Orleans include people who are blind, people who are deaf, people who use wheelchairs, canes, walkers, crutches... (Read more here. )
Website courtesy of Ragged Edge Online.
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