Developing Affordable and Accessible Community-Based Housing for Vulnerable Adults Proceedings of a Workshop (2017) / Chapter Skim
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4 Design Features of Accessible Housing for Older Adults and Individuals with Disabilities
4 Design Features of Accessible Housing for Older Adults and Individuals with Disabilities
Pages 31-44
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From page 31... ...
Corneil Montgomery, a senior program specialist in Habitat for Humanity International's Aging in Place program, and Patricia Tedesco, the coordinator of the Home Access Program at the Vermont Center for Independent Living, then discussed their organizations' efforts to increase the stock of affordable and accessible housing. An open discussion moderated by Elena Fazio from the Office of Performance and Evaluation at the Administration for Community Living followed the three presentations.
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From page 32... ...
Census Bureau's American Housing Survey2 provide some support for this hypothesis, Ward said. These data show that although households with at least one individual who uses some form of mobility equipment -- a cane, crutch, wheelchair, or powered scooter -- are more likely to have accessibility features in the home, many households that might benefit from these features still do not have them (see Table 4-1 and Figure 4-1)
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From page 33... ...
91.0 % Urban Non-Urban FIGURE 4-1 Rates of inaccessible housing among households with individuals using a mobility device in urban and non-urban settings.
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From page 34... ...
Ward and his colleagues are now conducting a study -- called the Health and Home Survey -- for which they surveyed households in three communities across the United States and asked survey participants about features of their home, how they feel while using those different features, and what percentage of maximal exertion is required for individuals in the home to engage in home activities, such as activities of daily living, entering and exiting the home, and preparing meals. For people with a mobility impairment, Ward and his colleagues found that these activities require two- to three-fold more exertion than for a person without a mobility impairment.
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From page 35... ...
In addition, as part of its Aging in Place program, the national office is encouraging local offices3 to engage in larger community improvement projects, such as streetscaping, building community gardens, and helping local residents improve their financial literacy skills. He said, too, that some of the local offices are developing and testing new models of housing, such as townhomes and co-housing, from which the national office can learn and then share best practices throughout the organization.
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From page 36... ...
Meals on Wheels America's assessment tools and questionnaires also enable Habitat for Humanity International to better understand the individual needs of families. Recently Habitat for Humanity International has also begun collecting data to determine the value of having universal design features in the homes it builds -- i.e., no-step entry, wide doorways and hallways, easily accessible controls and switches, easy-to-use handles, and one-floor living -- by measuring falls prevented, emergency room visits, quality of life, and cost savings to Medicaid and other parts of the health care system.
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From page 37... ...
In addition, some affiliates leverage funding from Medicaid to make the modifications. The Greater Memphis, Tennessee, affiliate and Salt Lake Valley, Utah, affiliate are already leveraging pay-for-success funding and studying whether they might be able to use health care system community benefit funds to do repairs and improvements that can help people stay healthy and in their homes.
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From page 38... ...
, a statewide nonprofit organization, opened its doors in 1979. The Home Access program was added in 1983 to fund and build accessibility features for households where there is someone who has a permanent physical or mobility disability and where the household income is below 80 percent of the HUD median household income for the homeowner's county, said Patricia Tedesco of VCIL.
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From page 39... ...
Projects that the home access program has completed include increasing the space beneath a bathroom sink to enable wheelchair access, converting a bathtub into a shower, installing fold-down grab bars, and installing ramps. In fiscal year 2016, Tedesco said the VCIL home access program received $545,000 of funding from the State of Vermont.
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From page 40... ...
DISCUSSION Winston Wong from Kaiser Permanente noted that some of the nation's more progressive health care organizations are looking at how to integrate social determinants of health into electronic health records. These organizations are also looking to take more accountability for the social aspects of keeping individuals as healthy as possible and optimizing the health care organizations' ability to care for their consumers' chronic conditions.
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From page 41... ...
He added that as Habitat for Humanity International moves from a one-house/one-family approach to a more coordinated approach with communities, the organization will be evaluating accessibility features of entire city blocks. Robyn Stone of LeadingAge commented that the architects and other consultants she works with have found that lighting is important to accessibility, particularly for individuals with a visual impairment, and that the necessary modifications can be as simple as changing light bulbs.
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From page 42... ...
Tedesco said that the access consultant form the VCIL home access program uses includes questions specific to smoke detectors. In addition, the program installs a smoke and carbon monoxide detector in every home in which it does a bathroom modification or ramp installation.
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From page 43... ...
Dara Baldwin of the National Disability Rights Network said that most government agencies do not work with Native American communities, though the Bureau of Indian Affairs is starting a program on housing, as is the National Council for American Indians (NCAI)
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