Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Planning for accessibility and visitability

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 10 Jan 2011, at 9:44 PM, Debby Vajda wrote:

>    * People with physical disabilities have the opportunity to live in
>      community, and the community benefits from their presence.
>    * All community members are able to age in place, even as our
>      physical abilities change with time.
>    * All homes are visitable by everyone, broadening our connections
>      and friendships.

And we are all disabled at some point at all ages. Our accessibility features 
are used every day by more people who are technically not disabled than they 
are by the much smaller number who are technically disabled.

Just this week we have one resident with a broken foot and another with a 
broken shoulder. If you have ever climbed stairs with a broken shoulder or 
tried to open a door on crutches, you will understand how much an elevator or 
sloped walkway and an elevator can mean.

Then there are the legions of parents with wheeled vehicles and packs of baby 
stuff.

We have a large number of accessible units and most are visitable. It makes a 
huge difference to us. DC as well is very accessible — I'm always surprised 
when I travel how many cities still aren't.

A very nice message from Debbie. I hope this can be saved somewhere in the Coho 
USA website.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org