What Does it Look Like?

Happy National AccessAbility Week! This year’s focus is “Building a Strong, Accessible Canada”[1]. In this blog post we wanted to talk about accessibility and how it relates to our work in the homeless serving sector.

Generally, the homeless population travels around the city accessing services related to basic needs, healthcare, and housing. Accessibility is an incredibly important and overlooked topic in the homeless serving sector. According to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, people with disabilities are four times more likely to experience homelessness than people without disabilities, and we see this data reflected in our day-to-day work[2].

With this in mind, we have to ask ourselves… how accessible are our cities?

Back in 2023, a research project led by the University of Calgary called the Mapping Our Cities for All (MOCA) report gave us a clearer picture of Calgary’s accessibility. Based on 5,416 places that were mapped in Calgary, 34.7% of those locations in our city were perceived as accessible to people with disabilities. In contrast, the other mapped cities in the report, Ottawa and Vancouver, both come in at a figure of roughly 50%.

The accessibility of a business or location can be deceptive, and it can be hard to assess accessibility if you’ve never had your own mobility or accessibility challenges. For example, you might think a ground floor business would generally be accessible, but, if your mobility is limited, you would soon become aware of the fact that many of those businesses have a small step at their front door. It’s often a seemingly insignificant bump but, without a ramp, those businesses are now inaccessible for a person in a wheelchair. Back in 2015, there was a project in Calgary called Ramp it Up[3]! that sought to address this specific challenge by connecting with businesses and business revitalization zones to place brightly coloured ramps at the entrances to businesses with those small steps to improve accessibility at no additional cost to the business owners. The project gained media attention, which we know is a critical part of raising awareness for disabilities, disorders, and other health challenges that don’t impact a majority of the population.

Calgary’s harsh winter conditions pose additional challenges for people with mobility challenges; post-snowstorms, sidewalks are often secondary or tertiary priorities when it comes to snow clearing, especially on side streets and in residential areas- making it very difficult, or even impossible for some to traverse the city. These challenges are even more evident when we add experiences with homelessness into the mix. People living on the street don’t have the option to stay inside- they can’t wait for the weather to clear up— they have to travel around the city to access food, water, healthcare, and other services to meet their basic needs.

Creating true accessibility in our spaces requires more than just crossing off items on a checklist; it requires having discussions with people with disabilities, learning more about how they move through the world to understand what would actually be helpful and what the best practices are when it comes to implementing solutions. It also requires consistent effort to prioritize accessibility even when it might be cheaper or easier to think of simple tasks, like shoveling our sidewalks effectively and efficiently, to support people in wheelchairs as less important than doing these tasks only to accommodate those who are able-bodied.

When it comes to how we engage with accessibility at Alpha House, our role is to make sure our services are accessible to our clients with disabilities, and to provide transportation, connection to services, and most importantly: housing. We are big advocates of not only adding more units to the housing supply but making sure that there is a sufficient supply of housing that meets the needs of different demographic groups within the low-income and homeless populations.

There is already a significant gap between the supply of social housing and the demand for it within the homeless population, so finding a suitable home that meets the accessibility needs of someone living with a disability is notably more difficult. People with disabilities are almost 2x more likely to live in core housing need; they are more likely to live in unaffordable housing; and more likely to not have the mobility aids they need in their home[4].

Accessible also means adjusting for the additional barriers created because of people’s disabilities. People with disabilities often can’t work full-time or at all. The income from AISH often barely covers modern rental prices and implementing mobility aids such as stair lifts and wheelchair ramps, and sourcing wheelchairs, walkers, and electric mobility scooters is costly. Additionally, without legislation or laws ensuring accessibility in new or renovated developments, the brunt of expenses for mobility aids fall on the individual.

With the support of our partners and the community, we are able to house formerly homeless individuals with disabilities in one of our PBSH (place-based supportive housing) buildings, Aurora on the Park. The building and units are fully equipped with mobility supports. Some of the mobility adjustments we have made to the building include:

• A stairlift and elevator to assist clients moving around the building
• Ample room underneath countertops for wheelchair users
• A rotating mobility aid in the unit with a bar to hold onto for individuals that need assistance moving around their unit
• Showers in the units are equipped with a seated space and a handhold to assist clients transferring from their wheelchairs to the shower, and vice versa

However, having an accessible home only solves part of the problem; many of our clients at Aurora, those accessing our shelter, and those sleeping on the streets, require assistance making it to appointments and engaging in the community. Alpha House now has two accessible vans equipped with a wheelchair ramp to support our clients with mobility challenges.

Much like homelessness, tackling accessibility takes a community. It requires investment, empathy, and buy-in from businesses and landowners to do their due diligence in removing barriers and improving accessibility even when it is inconvenient.

 

[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/campaigns/national-accessability-week.html

[2] https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/resources/publications/monitoring-the-right-housing-people-disabilities/homelessness-monitoring-the-right-to-housing-for-people-with-disabilities

[3] https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/its-a-beautiful-simple-little-project-brightly-coloured-wooden-ramps-coming-to-calgary-businesses

[4] https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/our-work/monitoring-canada-human-rights-obligations/monitoring-disability-rights/right-housing-people-disabilities