Visitability and National Aging in Place Week

This column is devoted to current initiatives in accessible housing advocacy. Visitability legislation and National Aging in Place Week will increase both awareness and the stock of better housing.

Eleanor Smith remembers when it would start to rain in her neighborhood and everyone would run to someone's house to continue playing. Everyone but Eleanor. She always rolled to her house in her wheelchair.

Smith's memories, strength and purpose spawned the visitability movement, which seeks to extend the civil rights promised by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to personal lives. In 1986 in Atlanta, Smith founded Concrete Change (www.concretechange.org), which focuses on making all homes (not government buildings, restaurants, etc., which the ADA covers) accessible and on narrowing the emphasis to the essentials -- entering a home, fitting through interior doorways, using a bathroom -- to encourage quick and widespread changes in residential construction.

In 1992 in Atlanta, Concrete Change successfully lobbied for the first visitability ordinance in the United States, and the movement since has expanded to many other communities and states. It became a national movement in June when Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) introduced the Inclusive Home Design Act (H.R. 2353). "It defies logic to build new homes that block people out when it's so easy and cheap to build new homes that let people in," Schakowsky said. Her bill would require all new single-family homes receiving federal funds to meet three standards:

• an accessible route, or "zero step," into the home
• 32-inch clearance doorways on the main level
• one wheelchair-accessible bathroom

Meanwhile, the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association has initiated National Aging in Place Week, Nov. 9-15. The NRMLA's goal is to increase awareness that if "aging in place is a goal, home modification is an important and valuable strategy."

The message is targeted to two groups:

1. Consumers who want to age in place and their family members, friends, advisers and caregivers.

2. Leaders of agencies, nonprofit organizations, governments, advocacy groups and businesses whose constituencies identify aging in place as a goal. The NRMLA and the National Advisory Council for Aging in Place will encourage these leaders to promote home modifications -- design and equipment alterations that make homes more comfortable, convenient and accessible -- in their newsletters, seminars, programs and continuing education.

Events for the week include:

• the launch of a new Web site, www.seniorsafehome.com.
• the mailing to satellite event attendees and consumers of a complimentary Consumer Guide to Home Modifications.
• an Aging in Place summit in Washington for national (and some local) leaders of industry, business, govt. agency and association/trade/trade interest groups who have a stake or interest or constituency interested in aging in place.
• satellite activities in at least seven cities (Boston, Washington, Minneapolis, Seattle, Los Angeles, Buffalo, N.Y., and Charleston, S.C.) that will include home media showcases and seminars for consumers, professionals and state leadership.
• complimentary availability to all of the Web-based Lifease home assessment (www.lifease.com/lifease-home.html).
• National, state and local proclamations and political endorsements, newspaper and magazine articles and radio and television interviews.

To help organize the event, the NRMLA formed the National Advisory Council for Aging in Place. Members include:

• ADAptations Inc., Bellevue, Wash.
• American Occupational Therapy Association, Bethesda, Md.
• Center for Universal Design, North Carolina State University, Raleigh
• The Helping Home, Des Moines, Iowa
• Howard County Office on Aging, Columbia, Md.
• IDEA Center, School of Architecture and Planning, University at Buffalo (N.Y.)
• Leon Harper & Associates Inc., Dale City, Va.
• Lifease Inc., New Brighton, Minn.
• National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, Washington
• National Association of Home Builders' Remodelors Council, Washington
• National Center for Seniors' Housing Research (an affiliate of the NAHB Research Center), Upper Marlboro, Md.
• National Council on the Aging, Washington
• National Resource Center on Supportive Housing and Home Modification, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
• Solutions for Accessibility, Boston
• Louis Tenenbaum LLC, independent living strategist, Potomac, Md.

Both the visitability movement and the National Aging in Place Week will increase awareness, and both have "concrete and wood" or "bricks and mortar" goals to change homes to meet the needs and demands of our 21st-century population. In addition, both speak to basic American dreams regarding homeownership, respect and dignity.

Visitability ensures the right to choose who visits -- friends, relatives or neighbors. Aging in place secures independence. It preserves the choice of when to eat, when to sleep, when to move or if we stay.

Respect. Dignity. Independence. Choice. These initiatives will have a positive impact on lives.