Make housing affordable and accessible with universal design, advocate tells province

No matter where you live in New Brunswick — or in Canada for that matter — it’s a challenge to find decent, affordable housing. Whether it’s a house, condo, apartment, or alternate care residence, options are scarce, overpriced, or unsuitable.

For those needing long-term care or truly accessible units, the situation is even worse. Landlords know this and charge premium rates, pushing essential housing out of reach. When these units sit empty due to cost, developers and landlords use vacancies to claim they aren’t needed.

In New Brunswick, 35.3 per cent of residents ages 15 to 65 lived with one or more disabilities by 2022, according to Statistics Canada. And according to the 2021 census, 22.8 per cent of people here are 65 and over and entering what is supposed to be their “golden years.”

In that context, how can we justify that so few units in new buildings are accessible and affordable? Is it any wonder that so many people are forced to live in hospitals?

Universal design, which aims to create homes that are usable by all people throughout their lives, is the solution. Contrary to the claims of some developers, planning with universal design from the start adds little or no cost to apartment complexes or private homes.

New Brunswick’s current approach — to retrofit after construction — is wasteful, expensive, and environmentally harmful. Worse, it forces people with disabilities to relocate repeatedly as their needs evolve.

Universal design allows seniors to age at home with dignity. For example, they are less likely to fall if their homes are free of elevation changes in flooring. Fewer falls mean fewer hospitalizations, fewer premature nursing home placements, and a better quality of life.

Universal design also makes sense financially. Hospitalizations represent a massive expense for the public purse. And on an individual level, seniors in nursing homes pay up to $113 per day in New Brunswick. Of course, universal design won’t eliminate care needs, but it will delay them, reduce costs, and improve lives.

And what about younger adults with disabilities? Many are placed in nursing homes due to a lack of age-appropriate care facilities. This blocks beds for seniors and isolates younger people in institutional settings.

The Federal Housing Advocate has endorsed universal design. And Premier Susan Holt told advocates like myself that she intended to mandate it. So why are we still waiting?

New Brunswick should start by requiring universal design in all NB Housing units and Build Canada Homes projects.

When the provincial government released its five-year strategic plan on accessibility last month, a reporter from the NB Media Co-op asked Minister Jean-Claude D’Amours if there were any plans to incorporate universal design into standards for NB Housing units.

The Minister didn’t have a ready answer, saying instead that the government’s Accessibility Advisory Board will provide guidance. If you want to tell the province what you think, government consultations are ongoing, including a “benchmark survey on accessibility.”

Remember, the disability community does not discriminate: every day, someone wakes up to find they’ve become a member of our community, whether it’s due to an accident, an illness or ageing. Waiting until that day to demand better accessibility will be too late. When it happens in your household, what will you do?

Shelley Petit is an accessibility advocate and chair of the NB Coalition of Persons with Disabilities.