Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Required handicap access to 2nd floor/elevator

[laura (lrifkin12]

Dear Matthew,

Perhaps if you really understood the “human” cost to your friend and  
others in that situation, you would not be so quick to discount the  
need for access. If it were you in the situation I suspect your  
thinking would be different.

The fact that some disabled folks cope with inhumane situations, is  
not an excuse to perpetuate attitudes and architecture of exclusion  
for people with disabilities (which ultimately will be everyone at  
some point in life).  It is these very kinds of arguments that led to  
many civil rights demonstrations and necessitated legislating access.
Left to their own devices even inclusive communities may opt to be non- 
inclusive, apparently.  Truly, you might want to check with disabled  
people in your surrounding communities about what access really  
constitutes and not make assumptions which create more hardship for  
those who already have sufficient challenge.  Also, when it comes to  
access it is best to let disabled folks have a say in it.  The “super- 
crip” stereotype is one that is not helpful for most folks with  
disabilities.

Perhaps the co-housing list should compile a list of co-housing sites   
where people have really thought about this issue and are committed to  
access and a list of places where there is just minimal accommodation  
and a lack of desire to do more.  That would help disabled folks to  
know where they are not really welcome and where they are fully  
embraced as members of the community.

I think it’s good to see a discussion like this out in the open.
It reminds me that access like most civil rights is not  necessarily  
well understood by those who do not face  the same challenges in life.


Laura

On May 8, 2008, at 11:33 AM, Matthew Whiting wrote:

> This is an issue many feel passionate about, so I'll make my  
> uninformed
> comment brief.  I had a great friend in college who was essentially  
> wheel
> chair bound.  She still came up to our upstairs apartment all the  
> time,
> though she had to leave her wheel chair below and inch up the  
> stairs.  We'd
> often get the wheel chair for her and help her up, but often we'd  
> just have
> a knock at the door, with Elizabeth there.  We've kept in touch and  
> she's
> visited many times, always having to navigate stairs.  Is it the best
> situation for her not to have elevators everywhere - no - but she  
> makes the
> best of the situations she's in.  It makes sense to design buildings  
> for
> accessiblity, but not everything can be accessible to everyone.  It  
> just
> doesn't make money sense to do so.  Design in accessiblity where the
> community will get the biggest bang for their buck.  If you put in  
> elevators
> everywhere you'll "descriminate" against those that now can't afford  
> to live
> in the community.  Life is full of trade-offs.
>
> -Matt Whiting
> Utah Valley Commons - forming
> Provo, Utah
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/