Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
July 10, 2002
In-home accessibility gives physically challenged more freedom of movement
`Visitability' advocates urge making all homes accessible to disabled
By Maureen Daly
Building a house? Remodeling? With Americans living longer and with that aging including some limitations on mobility, remodelers and house buyers need to think ahead and consider accessibility and "visitability."
Visitability is the new word that is catching on to describe the 15-year-old movement to ensure that disabled people can freely visit their neighbors and friends at home.
The two features necessary to make a home comfortably accessible are a zero-step entrance and a bathroom on the entrance level with a doorway at least 32 inches wide.
Worried about the cost? Concrete Change, a Decatur, Ga., international movement to make all homes accessible, estimates $200 per house is a reasonable average for new construction of planned-in-advance basic access to a home. The group's Web site — http://concretechange. home.mindspring.com — provides construction guidelines for new and existing homes with practical suggestions on how to adapt existing sites.
Opponents of accessibility requirements say the adaptations could cost up to $5,000 and point out that there are only 2.1 million wheelchair users in the United States. Supporters of visitability say those 2.1 million wheelchair users have millions more relatives and friends and that social isolation is one of the worst aspects of limited mobility, especially since it is easily remedied.
William J. Malleris, a housing developer and a wheelchair user, has become a visitability advocate. Since the early 1990s, his Naperville, Ill., company has built visitable houses at affordable and market-rate prices. On Feb. 5, 2002, Malleris, chairman of the Naperville fair-housing commission, celebrated a victory when the city council of Naperville, a suburb west of Chicago with a population of 135,000, passed an ordinance requiring all new single-family houses to be built with some visitability features.
"Naperville is the first major municipality to require accessibility in privately as well as publicly funded single-family home construction," Malleris told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from his office at Maple Court Development in Naperville.
In testimony before the U.S. Congress in 1999, Malleris said that the 1991 Fair Housing Amendments Act minimum accessibility requirements for all new multifamily buildings were "reasonable" and "attainable." He also testified that developers in the Chicago area had refused to follow the fair-housing accessibility technical requirements.
A bill to exempt the building industry from compliance was defeated.
He said a survey by the U.S. Department of Justice and Access Living, a disability rights organization, tested 49 new housing developments in the area and only Maple Court Development was in compliance with the minimum accessibility.
His company's 48-unit Maple Court Apartments has 20 barrier-free units at affordable housing prices, and 28 adaptable units at fair-market prices.
The Naperville City Council approved requirements for all new homes to be constructed with 32-inch-wide door openings, wood blocking behind bathroom walls to support installation of grab bars and electrical outlets and switches at wheelchair-accessible heights. It sent the no-step entrance requirement back to the fair housing commission for further study.
The state of Vermont and Pima County, Ariz., have passed accessibility requirement for new construction, including no-step entrances. Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Texas, and Urbana, Ill., have passed similar laws pertaining to housing built with public funds. Other ordinances are also being considered in Santa Monica, Calif., Long Beach, Calif., Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and the state of Kansas.
Paralyzed Veterans of America, advocates for independence for veterans who have experienced spinal-cord injury or dysfunction, offers floor plans and design advice for making kitchens and bathrooms accessible on its Web site — www.pva.org.
"Jesus said, `Wherever two or more are gathered in my name I am there.' How does a person with a disability gather in his name if the location is not accessible?" asked Bob Reuter, a transportation engineer and owner of Access Systems, a consulting company that focuses on access and public transportation issues.
"Remember they had to remove the roof to lower the paralytic in to see Jesus" because the house was not accessible, said the wheelchair user who works as a eucharistic minister and sign-language interpreter at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Baltimore. "Most of the true work of the Church is the work that takes place outside of the church building, usually in people's homes."
"Why shouldn't I also be allowed to serve the `poor and vulnerable?'" he asked.
"One of the great disservices that most churches do to people with disabilities is the denial of the opportunity to `serve others,'" Reuter said. "Making every house visitable allows all persons to become ministers to others, being able to visit the sick, be a eucharistic minister, to go to the planning meetings, to get and give training and to share ones faith."
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