Universal Design: accessible housing gets support from Federal Housing Advocate

 

                                     

                                                                         NO ENTRY!

                              

We have all heard or experienced that too many Canadians are having a hard time finding a safe and affordable place to live.

Accessibility doesn’t seem to be mentioned all that often.

So it came as good news to the Accessible Housing Network (AHN) that Canada’s Federal Housing Advocate, Marie-Josee Houle, recently urged the Canadian government to incorporate Universal Design in its catalogue of pre-approved blueprint designs for homebuilders. This will result in homes that anyone, regardless of their ability, can enter and exit easily and live in comfortably and successfully. 

The AHN, comprising about 70 organizations, has long advocated for homes that can accommodate all people throughout their lifetime.  Its co-chair is Stouffville resident Dr. Salvatore Amenta, a tireless advocate for the rights of the disabled. I’m sharing his article below on how Universal Design is vital to a large segment of the population, including the huge number of baby boomers who will turn 80 over the next few years.

But first I did a little research on how Universal Design started. If you are healthy and active, you can live your life almost anywhere: no matter how many stairs your house has.  You can can work well with ‘normal’ height kitchen counters, you can turn doorknobs and scoot into the bathroom any time you want. You even have the stamina to stand at the stove and cook a whole meal.

But, throw a sudden injury, an on-going disability, waning strength and stamina or a wheelchair into the mix, and your life looks a lot different. 

And that’s the way it was for the many injured soldiers returning home in 1945 after the Second World War. For many, their homes were no longer liveable and society had to confront this new reality. 

A few years later polio came along. Ronald Mace, born in 1942 in the United States, contracted the rampant disease when he was nine. Next step: the wheelchair. He persevered, however. Even though he had to be carried up and down stairs for his classes at university and helped into the washrooms, he graduated as an architect. Thinking that there must be a better way, he came up with the idea of Universal Design for his home designs. Universal Design can include such features as wider bathroom doorways, lower kitchen counters, lower light switches, ramps instead of stairs, and other adaptations depending on people’s needs both in their homes and public spaces.

For more insight into an issue that will eventually affect many of us, please read Mr. Amenta’s article below.  Please share, if you wish.

BREAKING NEWS:  

Federal Housing Advocate calls for Universal Design

By Salvatore Amenta

 

Since the Accessible Housing Network considers Universal Design the key to housing for all, AHN welcomes the Federal Housing Advocate’s recent call to require it for the pre-approved plans in the government’s forthcoming catalogue.  

 

Universal Design (UD) anticipates everybody’s needs before they arise – for parents with strollers, delivery workers, movers, young and old.  Automatic doors and ramps are very popular, yet we keep building homes only for the able-bodied.  After an accident or chronic illness we incur costly renovations to stay home – unless it was built to be accessible and adaptable to begin with.  

Universally-designed housing accommodates people of all ages and abilities; it is easy to enter and live in barrier-free, for life.  Australia mandated UD in its national building code, and AHN has petitioned Parliament to do likewise.  

Since accessible housing is rare, Marie-Josée Houle urges government to provide an adequate supply.  However, an adequate stock of it can’t be built for future generations unless the provinces and territories follow a national standard.  And the housing crisis can’t end while there’s buck-passing and delay.

Fortunately, accessible housing is affordable – if we just change HOW we build!  Accessibility Standards Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation agree:  adaptable housing costs a little more but saves a lot more in renovations, and accessible apartments cost the same.   

 

Accessible housing is also safer – leading to fewer falls and ambulance calls, ER visits, hospitalizations (Visit AHN’s website.)  It raises our standard of living.

 

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (2005) and Accessible Canada Act (2019), aim to make Ontario fully accessible by 2025 and Canada by 2040.  But they are concerned almost exclusively with PUBLIC spaces, as if accessibility isn’t important in PRIVATE spaces!

This may explain why builders settle for minimal requirements and building codes require only 15% of apartment units to be "visitable" (rather than livable).  The needs of “normal” people seem to trump those of the “disabled.”

But StatsCan’s figure of 27% is only the tip of the iceberg.  It hides millions of Canadians who do not report being virtually blind without glasses, deaf without hearing aids, grounded without mobility devices. 

The good news from StatsCan is that 75% of seniors own homes worth about $750,000. Millions of them could afford to buy the accessible housing they need with their trillions in equity.  By mid-century their number will double in some areas!  

Why isn’t the housing industry capitalizing on this?  Few developers and municipalities are providing accessible housing (like the Daniels Corporation, with its “Accessibility Designed Program”, and Edmonton with its Lifelong Homes).  In September of 2023, only 33 of Ontario’s 901 real-estate developers were members of the Accelerating Accessibility Coalition.

 

We are all an accident or illness away from disability, suddenly facing barriers in and out of the house.  Seemingly unaware, the housing industry keeps building units that are inaccessible, non-adaptable, and also unaffordable.

But housing has been declared a human right, so to delay it is to deny it – especially for seniors who don’t have long to live.  Some are resorting to MAiD for the desperate lack of proper housing.  The housing rights of persons with disabilities are being violated and seniors are being forced into long-term care where thousands died of COVID.

 

Marie-Josée Houle is urging collective action on housing, stressing that “we have an incredible opportunity to build inclusively from the start, which will make a real difference in peoples’ lives”.  Her call for Universal Design advances the Accessible Canada Act’s goal of a barrier-free Canada.  

Accessible housing for all – now!

Salvatore Amenta, Co-Chair, Accessible Housing Network

E-Mail: AccessibleHousingNetwork@gmail.com   

La Befana Swoops By Stouffville

                                                                              

The festive season brings with it many amazing and wonderful things. Increased goodwill, camaraderie and cheer.

It is good to be alive.

Around here, we keep that festiveness going. After all, we have to be ready for La Befana. She arrives here on January 6th after a strenuous overnight flight from Italy.  I imagine riding a broom for hours without a padded broom handle might get a bit painful, especially if you are a few centuries old. 

This good Italian witch is part of a puzzling seasonal phenomenon. There is a skyrocketing increase in break-ins in most of our homes, but most of the time we don’t call the police or beef up our security systems. We don’t fear losing our possessions, be they mundane or treasured, from these annual break-and-enter artists. Instead, for many of us who are fortunate, things are coming in by droves. Remember Christmas morning?  

Beings like The Elves on the Shelf are among the first to enter many homes. These sprites cause all kinds of naughtiness—spilling things, hiding themselves in odd places, breaking into the treats and leaving crumbs, or worse, all over the kitchen counter. Then, whether you have a chimney or not, Santa will have arrived really early to our homes where children have been too excited to sleep and parents are too tired to get up. Other assorted elves such as Bluetoes may visit too. This year, just before Christmas Eve, he brought us a small paper house filled with gingerbread.

Where do all these welcome visitors come from? 

“The North Pole!”, children will shout.

We, who call ourselves grownups, also know they come with all the love and goodwill that all of us can muster, even under trying times. It’s a world-wide happening—every year, every year.

Now we are waiting for La Befana to swoop by on the eve of January 6 to fill the socks we leave out. She does get to visit most of the kids in Italy, as I understand it.

This day, which falls on Epiphany, is a public holiday in Italy and has been celebrated since the 1300s with special festivals, decorations and lots of little toy Befanas. Kids put out their socks hoping to avoid getting that dreaded lump of coal—La Befana will know if they have been on their best behaviour.

                                                           

A few years after La Befana had been visiting our house, we found out more about her life from a charming book called “The Christmas Witch, An Italian Legend”. Did you know she has a terrible singing voice? Causing shutters to slam around the neighbourhood? And she bakes delicious cookies. We re-read the book every year. Legend has it that the three Wise Men stopped by her place looking for directions to the manger where baby Jesus lay. They asked her to come along. She hesitated. She had to sweep and clean her house first, she explained. By the time she had a change of heart, it was too late. She never found the Wise Men or the stable. But ever after she has flown around on Jan. 6 giving small gifts to as many children as she can.

                                                            

           

 

Surprisingly, La Befana has made it over here to furthest Stouffville for our children and now our grandchildren. We put out an assortment of regular socks—the bigger, the better. La Befana fills them with a couple of chocolates, some salami, walnuts, mandarin oranges and maybe a tiny cheese or two. Many years ago, as some of my Italian relatives remember it, she would tuck the only orange of the year into those socks. That precious, glowing orange. But during war years or other lean times, even her magic couldn’t make that orange appear. But she always managed at least some roasted chestnuts, dried figs or an apple.

For the brand-new year of 2024, I wish everyone this same spirit of goodwill to overcome conflicts everywhere. I wish you all a happy, healthy, creative and peaceful New Year.

PHOTO CREDITS: 

Photo of LaBefana dolls in Rome, ricksteves.com by ETBD staff

La Befana book: The Christmas Witch, An Italian Legend Retold by Joanne Oppenheim, Illustrated by

Annie Mitra, published by Bantam Books, 1993.

 

Thanks and hope for peace and pumpkins

 

This was to be my Happy Thanksgiving Day blog, but somehow kids, a turkey, harvesting and a couple of Jack-O-Lanterns waylaid it.

And for that I was thankful. 

In this corner of our world, many of us are blessed with enough or too much. Compared to many other parts of the larger world, where too many things are whizzing through the air to destroy homes and lives, most of our lives are peaceful. And for this we gave thanks this past weekend. And we had those in our hearts who live where there is no peace.

I also give thanks for the autumn season, bookended by tomatoes and pumpkins. It’s a funny thing, but I realized how much the people in our community that we don’t know add to our lives. Let me explain. We have enjoyed making our own tomato sauce every year from our own tomatoes and the bushel or two that we buy. This year’s tomato buying expedition featured some interesting characters that wouldn’t be out of place in a cheesy Italian opera. I can just hear a tenor belting out, “Pomodori! Pomodori!” (tomatoes) in full voice.

“The truck is on its way,” we were reassured when we phoned the store. An older couple was ahead of us when we arrived. They had been there over an hour, and were having a couple of double espressos—to steady their nerves I presume. Suddenly a large truck decorated with pictures of giant luscious tomatoes drove by us. We were closer to our goal! Everyone’s spirits lifted; cheers were heard. I talked to the fellow standing next to us. By the time we left, we had found out all about his family’s annual tomato sauce production—in detail. He whipped out his phone: I saw the inside of his garage, the portable burner with the giant pot, the giant wooden stirring spoon and bushels of tomatoes. I think there were basil plants lurking nearby. His family swears by the machine method. An electric machine—no hand cranking required. With this method, boiled tomatoes are passed through the tomato squashing machine to separate out the seeds and skins. Our household, however, has moved on, become modern we like to think, putting the tomatoes in a blender so the sauce contains seeds, finely chopped up skins and all those wonderful vitamins. I have noticed some slight tensions between the ‘seeds’ versus ‘no seeds’ factions —as in, “I hate seeds in the sauce”, but I am happy to report that things have remained civil so far, both in our own family and with our fellow tomato-seeker.

Adding to the opera was the Nonna we spotted protectively hovering over the six bushels of pomodori she had managed to nab. A mother hen protecting her chicks from all comers could look no fiercer. You do not safely come between an Italian Nonna about to make tomato sauce and her bushels.

But six? 

“Three bushels for me”, she explained, “and three for my fren’.”

After watching the drama around us, our own experience was anticlimactic. I guess even operas have to have some down time. The two bushels were loaded into our trunk and with a bushel from the garden, we ended up with 37 Mason jars of fresh tomato sauce. 

                                                   

But soon after we wash the tomato spots off the kitchen, our house becomes littered with pumpkin seeds. Markham Fair is to blame. For years, my daughter and I have had a friendly rivalry, each hoping to get that big red rosette in the “Carve a Jack-O-Lantern’ class. My daughter has achieved this more than once; for me, it is, alas, a distant dream. We start thinking about pumpkin designs once summer is barely half over. Anybody visiting our homes is sworn to secrecy should they inadvertently overhear any whispered plans. This year I even carved a practice pumpkin a couple of days ahead as a template for the ‘real’ one.  We carted the completed masterpiece, with the legs carefully placed to one side, to the Fair in a bushel.

As is our custom, on the Saturday of the Markham Fair, we ran into the  Homecraft Building first. But—groan—history had repeated itself. My daughter received a third place ribbon for her excellent pumpkin, beating out my no ribbon. The loser—that’s me—has to buy the winner—that’s her—our favourite French fries at Rose Family Farm, north of town. I feel I can handle that!

And I am thankful that I can look forward to doing this again next year.

A Catastrophe: reincarnation or ?

 

Did I believe in reincarnation before?

Can’t say I did.

But after hearing this true story I became a little more easy with the idea until….

It happened in a place not far away and not long ago. The names of the innocent and confused are being deliberately protected. 

One morning while I was picking up garbage left on the roadside by some of our finer citizens, I saw a man in the distance take a long branch and push something orange over to the side of the road. When he walked by, I asked him, “What was that?”

I had a funny feeling when he replied, “an orange cat.” 

Cars speed along at a good clip here and it’s a fact that the felines crossing the road are seldom on the winning side of the encounter.

A neighbour who is known to care for these fluffy, charming creatures went out to take a look. I felt a nagging fear. He came back a short time later.

He was crying, “It is our cat!”

It was a heart-rending scene. I was sad all day.

We, too, have shed too many tears for kitties who have wandered onto the  road.

The good-hearted neighbour gave his beloved kitty a proper burial. More tears were shed. I don’t know if there was music or a short eulogy. I didn’t want to pry.

The day went along, as many of them do.

In the evening, as the neighbour was in the throes of cooking dinner, juggling ingredients and frying pans, he glanced out the back door. 

He froze.

Was that his cat meowing at the door?

It was!

“I just buried you,” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

When he recovered his state of mind and had been properly reunited with his pet, he realized that a look-alike cat had succumbed.

His tears turned to happiness; but not entirely.

“It was still someone’s cat that was loved”, he said, "and it will be missed."

                                        

 

Advocates Helping Seniors to Age Gracefully with Dignity at Home.

Ask most seniors and you will likely hear a variation of this answer: yes, we do want to keep living in the home we love as long as possible, near our friends, family and favourite places to visit. No! We don’t want to go to a retirement home or a long-term care facility.

That’s the message seniors advocates are taking to the Ontario, municipal and federal governments. 

And it is being heard. York Region will be including input from a grass-roots group, the Committee for an Age-Friendly Markham (CFAFM), as it updates its six-year-old York Region Seniors Strategy this summer. 

And recently, Mike Schreiner, leader of the Ontario Greens was the first party leader to sign the Accessible Housing Pledge launched by the AH Network, which aims to make all new housing accessible to the 24% of Ontarians with disabilities, many of them seniors coping with more than one disability. 

“Ontario Greens are fully committed to mandating universal design to ensure that all new housing is accessible for all and suitable for aging in place,” Mr. Schreiner said. 

This is something the CFAFM is very passionate about. They want to see changes to the Ontario Building Code to ensure that there are no barriers to anyone getting into and out of their homes and getting around comfortably inside. CFAFM members note that for seniors accessibility is more important than affordability, currently such a prominent issue for so many Canadians.

But there’s a lot of work for seniors advocates to do on several fronts.

Dr. Salvatore Amenta constantly asks politicians and officials of all stripes, “Why are so many beds and budgets being earmarked for long-term care when over 90 per cent of seniors surveyed want to stay in their own homes as long as possible?” 

The Stouffville resident is a member of both the CFAFM as well as Seniors for Social Action Ontario (SSAO), a hundreds-strong group of seniors who are asking the Ontario government to offer seniors alternatives to nursing homes. SSAO wants to see some of the $6.4 billion pledged for over 30,000 long-term care beds diverted to making more houses and apartments easily accessible. And it wants alternatives to include more smaller community-based housing and more and better home care.

“We don’t institutionalize anyone except old people and prisoners,” stated Andy Langer, a co-founder and chair of the Committee for an Age-Friendly Markham.

The sheer numbers of those 65 and older won’t be easy to ignore for long.

In only four years, the first of the love-beads-and-peace-symbols generation will turn 80. Around seven million of the 38 million people in Canada are over 65 now; over three million more are projected to join them by 2037.

This “silver tsunami,” as Mr. Amenta describes them, is largely driven by the baby boomers born between 1946 and 1965. 

With health services already under strain, seniors’ desire for more and better alternatives has become particularly poignant after older, frail people were made sicker and died in frighteningly large numbers in long-term care facilities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ironically, according to the recent Ageing Well report from Queen’s University, a substantial number of “between one-in-nine and one-in-five seniors in LTC facilities could do well with home care, a living arrangement that would suit them better and be a lot less expensive for them and society.”

“Community-based services have long been available for and successfully provided to people with disabilities,” said Mr. Amenta, who has championed  support for caregivers and persons with intellectual disabilities for decades.

Hoping to see changes soon, the CFAFM first brought its detailed proposals to Markham Council in 2019 and to a workshop last fall. These include designating at least 10 per cent of new houses and condos as “Always Homes” in Markham and York Region for barrier-free living now or with spaces allocated allowing for the addition of such things as elevators or chair glides later.

 “Sometimes it’s just a matter of small things like making a doorway or hall four inches wider to allow for a wheelchair, an outside ramp instead of stairs, lower kitchen counters and walk-in showers,” said Mr. Amenta.

Such changes have already been happening since 2003 in Saanich, B. C., using the concept of ‘visitability’, where these homes are accessible to everyone. Using a combination of mandated and voluntary measures, officials there are looking ahead 30 years to when the number of seniors 65 and over will double, comprising almost one-third of the population.

“If these features are not designed and built in, then they become huge barriers to staying at home,” Mr. Langer said, whereas “they incur little or no additional cost” if they are built at the outset.

The CFAFM wants to see them become part of the Planning Act and building codes which developers would be obligated to follow. The committee also outlined ideas for achieving more choice in seniors’ housing through using regulated secondary suites, coach houses and smaller communal settings. Mixed-use communities could be created where diverse groups such as university students and seniors, for instance, could live side by side. Land could be freed up for housing and places like palliative care hospices by building them over a small portion of municipally-owned parking lots. 

“It is very important for York Region to take a leading role for development of residential hospices,” stated Markham and York Region Councillor Jack Heath in an interview, adding,  “…York Region should be assisting in finding land and assisting with the project to build the hospice.” Markham’s 350,000 population requires 29 palliative care residential beds and there should be 100 for York Region, up from the current 23, he said.

But to allow our elders to live in dignity and with emotional support will require the province to dramatically increase, regulate and fund good-quality home care. 

“Home-care workers look after a million people in Ontario every year,” wrote Home Care Ontario CEO Sue VanderBent on the Ontario Medical Association’s website.  “That’s massive. More than 90 per cent of people want to live in their homes and receive care in their homes as they age. But there has been very little attention paid to the home-care system by successive governments.” (www.choosehomecare.ca)

In addition to this, about 150,000 Ontarians end up paying out of their own pockets for additional private help each year.

As well as assisting seniors with personal and medical needs, services such as snow shovelling and windrow clearing are vital, say CFAFM advocates. 

The Committee for an Age-Friendly Markham’s presentations were timely, noted Councillor Heath, as York Region updates its Seniors Strategy. 

The CFAFM is also urging everyone to advocate for themselves by voting. In the lead-up to the Ontario election, they are encouraging people to tell their local candidates what they want and need and ask those candidates where they stand on seniors issues.