This commentary is by Deborah Lisi-Baker of Waterbury, a member of the Vermont Coalition for Disability Rights; she has been active in disability rights and policy initiatives for over 40 years. Before retiring, she was associate director of UVM’s Center on Disability and Community Inclusion.
I read Jonah Richard’s commentary on Vermont’s Access Rules as I was gathering memories of two early leaders in the campaign to make homes and public buildings in Vermont more accessible.
David Sagi helped shape the rules and served on the Access Board. Jim Ross helped the Vermont Center for Independent Living make more homes accessible and helped many organizations meet the requirements of both state and federal laws.
I wish they both were still here to respond to Jonah, but I will do my best.
Mr. Richard believes that the access rules and the 20% access cost requirement are unreasonable for old buildings, forcing project planners to “tack on” access features in projects and making Vermont housing unaffordable.
Access renovations to old buildings are often more expensive but essential because so many housing and community development projects in Vermont make use of old buildings. Access features and costs are not intended to be “tacked on.” They are fundamental elements of preliminary planning to increase the usability of a building.
Often these costs and design features improve safety and sustainability as well as access. Federal and state laws clarify the scope and limits of any required access features and also allow project managers to request variances or exemptions.
How we use buildings changes over time. Anytime we address access, we make these buildings more useful in the future.
Jim Ross wasn’t originally a fan of the state’s access rules. As an employee of Middlebury College who oversaw building maintenance, he couldn’t figure out why it made sense to make Middlebury College’s old buildings accessible. Jim’s opinion changed when he agreed to meet David on the Middlebury campus, outside a building with a poorly designed ramp. After watching David pull out and use a portable tool he used to bridge the gap between the ground and the poorly designed start of the ramp, then rev up his electric wheelchair to make it up the incline and into the building, Jim quickly gained a very concrete understanding of why Vermont’s accessibility rules matter, even in old buildings.
David and Jim were good at helping Vermonters create practical solutions to access puzzles. Jim once told a friend that he knew that he wasn’t just planning an entrance or a bathroom: He was making homes work for the people who lived in them and helping to make an organization’s mission accessible to all Vermonters.
By the time he retired from Middlebury College, Jim was so committed to the mission of the Vermont Center for Independent Living’s Home Access Program that he offered to do access reviews across Vermont for the cost of a hot dog and his mileage.
What we choose to do about access in old buildings matters. The Health Department tells us that about 20% of Vermont adults have some form of disability, and that 55,100, or 11%, have serious trouble walking or climbing stairs.
Both lived experience and demographics tell us that we need to address the present and future needs of seniors, working-age Vermonters and households with children who need mobility or other accommodations in their homes, in the places they work and learn, and in the services they require.
A report, “Accessibility of America’s Housing Stock: Analysis of the 2011 American Housing Survey,” found that less than 1% of our country’s housing units are wheelchair-accessible; another one-third of America’s housing units are “potentially modifiable”; other units with some accessibility have minor or significant errors.
These units are primarily in newer buildings and multifamily housing. New England is a region with fewer accessible or adaptable units, perhaps because of our older buildings. For the 11% of Vermonters and 14% of Americans who need wheelchair accessibility. This is all very bad news.
Every year, the Vermont Center for Independent Living collaborates with state and community partners and local contractors to build accessible entrances and bathrooms in old and new homes. During the last three years, Home Access Program staff and contractors completed 272 projects that added ramps and entrance accessibility, elevators and accessible bathrooms to Vermont homes. Many developers and managers are also building and retrofitting units for accessibility, though accessibility sometimes falls short of what was intended.
All this work is invaluable and requires a shared understanding of and commitment to accessibility and adaptability and to the current and projected future need for accessible housing for adult households and for families with children.
In the early 1980s, I listened to Annie, a Vermont Center for Independent Living staff member, report on her day, which included crawling up a few flights of stairs to visit a peer who was stuck in a top-floor apartment in a building without an elevator. It was what was available for what he could afford.
Vermont’s access rules were written to respond to inequities like this. Vermonters still share these stories today, 40 years later. We will never meet the need for accessible and affordable housing and public spaces if builders, Realtors, property managers and policymakers continue to ignore or underestimate accessibility needs until they find themselves looking for accessibility for themselves or someone they love.
