Great British Housing Safari: my hunt for an accessible place to call home | #ForAccessibleHomes News

I’ve been a wheelchair user for 28 years, living mainly in London with spells in other cities and it has always been a struggle to find suitable housing. I expect it of older buildings but I’m frequently disappointed that modern buildings continue to fail wheelchair users. It shouldn’t be this difficult to find an accessible home whether it’s social housing, private renting or buying.

It’s no secret that there is a chronic housing shortage across the country but this is felt even more so by people with mobility issues who encounter great difficulty finding homes that meet their most basic needs, consider for a moment what it is like to live in your own home without access to a toilet or a shower. Fairly inhumane isn’t it? Making properties accessible is essential, not just for an ageing population but for younger people who want to live independently, it’s down to house builders to ensure that new builds have accessible options; to be able to live as independently as possible is utterly life changing.

I was very fortunate. After my accident, my parents converted our garage into a bedroom and en-suite wet room for me, and everything was designed to accommodate my needs whilst not looking like a hospital ward. The only concessions were a grab rail next to the loo and two grab rails either side of the shower seat.

I have since lived in other locations, none adapted but I made them work for me. At university in Manchester, my halls of residence were accessible but when it came to second year I couldn’t move in with friends because we couldn’t find a single accessible house share, I was left with little alternative but to purchase a property of my own. I didn’t make any alterations to it; by chance it was suitable for my needs without the need for building work.

It was an entirely different landscape when I lived in Los Angeles a couple of years ago, apartment hunting for a wheelchair accessible property was a breeze in comparison, I actually had a choice of properties and opted for a new building, an open plan apartment, spacious enough for my chair to manoeuvre, step free access, underground car parking and a lift that went straight up to the roof terrace! Living the accessible dream.

We are in the process of selling our family home and I’m currently searching for two accessible properties in two different cities, London and Dublin but facing the same hurdles in both, a complete lack of accessible housing whether renting or buying. It’s incredibly disheartening to see that in 2018 architects rarely factor the needs of wheelchair users when designing new homes.

I’d be interested to know how accessible design is taught on architecture and construction degrees, is it a compulsory module or merely an elective? How much importance is placed on accessible design in continuing professional development? And what about the other decision makers in the built environment, politicians, planners and developers, where does accessibility rank on their list of priorities?

A person can be made more disabled by a poorly designed built environment and they can be made more independent by a well-considered and inclusive approach to design.

Disabled people shouldn’t have to reach out to DIY SOS in order to have their homes made accessible so they can lead the inclusive home life of non-disabled people. There needs to be a vast change in how homes are built, the most basic considerations would make a vast difference.

An extra few centimetres on a door frame make a dramatic difference for a wheelchair user, along with step free access into properties and ground floor bathrooms. Obviously, if money were no object I would have a very high-end wish list of bespoke elegant and discrete adaptions I would install in my new home. However, that’s for a different time, a different blog.

The bottom line is usually money. Perhaps developers aren’t conscious of the market they are overlooking, unaware of the numbers of people looking for an accessible home. If you’re not catering to a particular customer base how do you know the potential you are missing?

Consider how quickly wheelchair accessible bungalows sell when they come on the market, it’s really simple…“If you build it, they will come.”

If Shannon's views on accessibility resonate with you or you would like learn more about her, please visit http://www.shannonmurray.co/