Starting Point
Whatever you call it — accessible, universal design, life-time homes, adaptable, visitable — this site is about working together for basic access in ALL homes.
It’s not about access to public buildings — or helping builders create “niche marketing” for disabled or older people — or how to build your own fully accessible house from A to Z (click here if that’s what you need). It’s not about retrofitting existing homes for a person who’s become disabled, important as that is.
It is about correcting current building practices, which have disabled people and their allies desperately seeking help to undo existing barriers — while a half-mile down the road a new development is going up constructing exactly those same barriers. The word “visit-able” works well to express our goal because it rightly implies:
- A focus on homes, not government buildings, stores, restaurants, etc. (which are already covered in the United States by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990)
- ALL homes, not just “special” homes; being at the party, the meeting, the reunion — not isolation.
Narrowing the emphasis from a long list of possible or desirable access features to the most essential features: entering a home and fitting through the interior doors. So that widespread construction change is more likely to happen quickly. As a co-worker summarized: “Get in and pee.
