A NICE PLACE TO VISIT

Making Homes "Visitable" for People with Disabilities

What's it mean for a home to be visitable? Does it mean you'll find hors d'oeuvres on the sideboard? Grecian drapes in the music room with a Bach prelude oozing from surround-sound speakers? A butler in the pantry? Dogs in the kitchen?

No. Making a home visitable has to do with such core ideas as human safety and dignity for people with disabilities.

Basically, visitability is a kind of "no-frills" accessibility that many people would like to see applied to newly built homes, providing widened access for wheelchairs in entrance doors, hallways and bathroom doors.

It's not intended simply to guarantee that people with disabilities can better navigate their own homes, although that's certainly part of it. It's meant also to ensure they have access to the homes of others, disabled and nondisabled alike.

        The Challenge of Being a Visitor

According to Concrete Change, a Web site devoted to spreading the notion of visitability on a worldwide basis, the problems addressed by visitability can be described thus:

"Being a visitor in an inaccessible house means the dangerous possibility of being dropped down the steps, the worry and embarrassment of being kept from using the bathroom, the social awkwardness of being carried, the frustration of not being able to knock on the door to see if someone's home.

"Inaccessibility makes friendships harder to create and cuts people off from meetings where information is exchanged and decisions made; it causes people with disabilities not to be invited places, or to have them turn down invitations. And if they have low incomes, as many disabled people do, inaccessibility often forces them to live in a house where they may literally have to crawl every time they use the bathroom, or stay inside all day because of steps."

The concept of visitability is intended to address such injustices. Several American cities, including Atlanta and Austin, have enacted visitability legislation that applies to government-subsidized, single-family housing.

In 1998, the United Kingdom passed more sweeping legislation that isn't restricted to government-subsidized housing. It requires "level thresholds to be mandatory on all new homes to ensure access for people in wheelchairs. The 150,000 new homes built annually will in future also have to have a downstairs lavatory accessible to the disabled, wider internal and external doors and corridors, and less steep footpaths and approaches."

        The Right to Enter Homes

It's true that the Americans with Disabilities Act guarantees wheelchair users the right to gain access to such diverse public places as a Wendy's restaurant, a day-care center, an accounting firm, a concert hall or a baseball park.

The Fair Housing Act offers some basic protection to home buyers and renters with disabilities, in that it requires landlords to allow reasonable access.

But what if you're a person with a disability and the problem isn't your home but a friend's home?

What if, for instance, you want to go to your friend's house to watch the Super Bowl but find that, despite his assurances to the contrary, your wheelchair won't fit through the front door - not to mention the fact that there are several stairs leading to the bathroom that your friend forgot to mention?

Visitability, which attempts to address such difficulties, is related to, but different from, another concept called universal design. Universal design calls for all products and environments to be usable by and accessible for everyone. Such an all-encompassing concept presents substantial challenges, both financially and creatively, to builders.

Visitability narrows the focus considerably. It concerns itself with residential buildings and emphasizes the essentials only: being able to navigate through a main door and hallways and being able to gain access to the bathroom.

        Grassroots Accessibility Movement

Although visitability would not solve all accessibility problems, it's an important concept that's gaining interest in communities nationwide.

"Visitability provides a platform for making a house accessible," says William W. Altaffer, a Tucson, Ariz., attorney and vice chairman of the Tucson Commission on Disability Issues.

Altaffer, 43, who has spinal muscular atrophy, serves on the steering committee of MDA's National Task Force on Public Awareness.

"Unlike the ADA, which comes down from the federal government, visitability is a grassroots accessibility movement that's coming up from local municipalities," Altaffer says.

In the cases of the American cities that have approved visitability, the ordinances apply to new housing undertaken with help from government funding. Altaffer is involved in an advocacy effort to ensure that a visitability ordinance will be enacted in Tucson.

Basic visitability guidelines may vary by an inch or two, depending on the locality. Roughly, they require at least one zero-step entrance to every home; interior doors at least 32 inches wide; hallways at least 36 inches wide; and at least one bathroom with a doorway that's 32 inches wide and with walls that are constructed to be easily modified to include grab bars and other mobility aids, should they be needed at a later date.

The zero-step requirement will, in many instances, necessitate the incorporation of an outside ramp. Ratio of length to height -- in other words, the ramp's slope -- should be at least one foot in length for every inch of height (1:12). Steeper ramps may be difficult or even dangerous to navigate. (See "Ramp It!" in Quest vol. 5, no. 2 for more on ramps and slope.)

It's estimated that visitability would add only $200 to the price of a new home. Altaffer cites a study providing evidence that in Tucson the additional cost could be held to $100.

Nonetheless, the Tucson effort has met opposition from the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association, which has argued that, for cost reasons, visitability standards should be voluntary, not mandatory.

        Inaccessibility Causes Social Isolation

Why is visitability important? One reason is that lack of basic accessibility to other people's homes has an underappreciated but potentially devastating effect on the social well-being of people with disabilities.

Paul Kahn, 54, has myotubular myopathy, a slowly progressive neuromuscular disorder. He uses a power wheelchair and ventilator. He lives in Auburndale, Mass., with his wife, Ruth.

Kahn is a playwright as well as a painter, an author of books and magazine articles, and a counselor. Much of his creative output has dealt with examining what it means to have a disability in our culture.

"Ruth and I do regret not being able to visit our friends who live in inaccessible homes," Kahn says. "We end up having people over to our house a lot, or going out to dinner with them or other entertainment.

"Our friends regret it, too. They would like to reciprocate. People's homes are extensions of themselves, and our friends are conscious of not being able to share that or be hospitable to us as they would like to be.

"Two good friends, who live in an old house with steps at the entrance, bought a ramp so we could visit them," Kahn says. "We were very moved by their commitment to sharing their home.

"Because friends with disabilities live in accessible homes, it's easier to visit them. But this can encourage a kind of 'ghettoization.'"

        Getting to the Party

Jan Blaustone, 45, who like Altaffer serves on MDA's National Task Force on Public Awareness, lives in Nashville, Tenn., with her husband, Michael, and their son, Lee.

Blaustone, an author and teacher who's also busy with gardening, photography and MDA fund-raising, has limb-girdle muscular dystrophy and uses a motorized scooter.

Because birthday parties are an important part of a 10-year-old's social life, Blaustone has spent considerable time driving Lee, who isn't disabled, to various parties. In some cases, if she doesn't know the family well enough to feel comfortable just dropping him off, she'll stay parked outside for the duration of the party.

"If it's an outside thing, it's OK, because my scooter can deal with grass. But if it's in someone's house, quite often I'll sit out front," she says. "Even though I can't get in the house, I don't want to deny him the chance to make friends and go to a birthday party."

She's also noticed that, because of her mobility difficulties, it's often easier to entertain at home than to visit the homes of others.

"I end up doing a lot of dinner parties," she says.

Even when she can gain access to someone else's house, she may not be able to navigate inside the house, which means others have to wait on her. She'd prefer to be able to take care of herself.

Because Michael is a musician, Blaustone has been invited to a number of beautiful but inaccessible mansions belonging to Nashville music stars.

Blaustone had a great time attending a baby shower at singer Barbara Mandrell's house, but getting up and down several flights of steps proved to be a gigantic undertaking. She also became conscious that efforts to get her inside could draw attention from those upon whom the party was meant to focus.

        Stairs Create a Social Divide

Milda Vizbar is an award-winning New York artist and designer who has Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. She's known for her commercial work as well as for her more personal illustrations and paintings, some depicting recurring imagery such as staircases.

Stairs are an important and extremely daunting metaphor for Vizbar, who occasionally uses a wheelchair but also walks unassisted. She has been involved in the universal-design movement and thinks about the problem of accessibility a great deal.

"In New York, particularly, we have so many places that are fourth-floor walk-ups. One would not think it would affect a friendship, but it does because people don't understand the difficulty of managing stairs," she says.

The problem constantly requires her to weigh the pros and cons of attending social functions. Not knowing how accessible a bathroom is may cause her to wonder if she'll have the luxury of being able to drink any liquids that evening.

"One wonders, will it be worth it ultimately? Because when one reaches the destination, one is a little bit too stressed out to truly participate in any kind of social interaction," she says.

"Sometimes I've said no to things that I wanted to go to because of stairs, or because of not knowing the situation. Socially, it has in fact terminated some potential friendships."

Those who have inaccessible homes may provide rather unrealistic offers of assistance getting up a flight of stairs.

"They don't understand," Vizbar says. "One feels an alienation from society - and no matter how well-meaning the individuals are who are inviting you, there's still that separation."

        Working Toward a Concrete Change

The Concrete Change Web site claims that visitability is "not about retrofitting existing homes for a person who's become disabled. It's about correcting current building practices, which have disabled people and their allies desperately seeking help to undo past barriers - while a half-mile down the road a new development is going up constructing exactly those same barriers."

Those interested in visitability advocacy efforts can also contact William Altaffer at william.altaffer@azbar.org.