PEI Council of the disabled push old policies

Summerside shouldn’t ghettoize the disabled: council

By Stephen Pate, NJN Network, Charlottetown, PEI, Canada, March 19, 2009
with story from CBC

Poor Marcia Carroll. She gets her moment of fame opening the “moved” P-COD office in Summerside and comes out strongly for a wrong headed policy from the past. “Give us one apartment in 12!” Carroll pleads. Golly, Marcia you’re not keeping up with the time. The new policy is making all homes accessible just like Councillor Brent Gallant argued. The US is passing a building code change that makes it easy for contractors to make all homes accessible, Inclusive Home Design Act Introduced. Keep up with the times. In 15 years the disability rate on PEI will be 1 in 4. P-COD’s plan is a day late and 11 apartments short. The only way to balance the demand is to make all new building stock accessible since the existing housing stock will last for 35 to 50 years. Of course, no one expects P-COD to get it right.

CBC
A P.E.I. group that lobbies for people with disabilities is urging Summerside council to push through changes to its building code bylaw.

‘People with disabilities have the right to live wherever they want.’— Marcia Carroll, P.E.I. Council of People with Disabilities

The changes would force developers to construct one barrier-free apartment for every 12 units in new buildings. After an extended debate, council delayed a vote on the amendment this week, but not before Coun. Brent Gallant expressed his opposition.

Gallant said it would be better if developers built barrier-free complexes, rather than a few units in all buildings.

“I would suggest to the councillor, would he want everybody from his age group to be living in one building?” Marcia Carroll, executive director of the P.E.I. Council of People with Disabilities, told CBC News Tuesday.

“That’s ghettoizing people. People with disabilities have the right to live wherever they want and they should have choice.”

Carroll said her office gets calls every day from people looking for affordable barrier-free apartments. Barrier-free units are in such high demand, she said, that landlords shouldn’t worry about whether the specialized units would be rented out.

Gallant believes that from a contractor’s perspective it makes more financial sense to construct an entire barrier-free building, rather than individual units, and he plans to vote against the amendment when it comes back to council next month.