Thank you.
My name is Thea Kurdi. I am an affiliate member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, an IAAP-certified accessible built environment professional, a board member of the Universal Design Network of Canada and the president of Designable Environments, a 35-year-old business and one of Canada's oldest accessible built environment consulting firms. I am also a person with several invisible disabilities.
Many Canadians don't know that our current building code mostly exempts housing from accessibility requirements, and, sadly, what little there is, even in the latest version, does not create usable accessible homes. This violates our 2010 commitments to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. For decades, disabled Canadians of all kinds and their families have been left with an avoidable accessible housing crisis. It hurts our health care and social services. It's also discrimination, and discrimination against our largest minority group, the 22%-plus, or over seven million of us, currently living with disabilities.
How did this happen? Forty years ago, we did change our Canadian charter and human rights code to say that disabled people are equal citizens and that buildings and places shall not discriminate against them, but we failed to fix both design and construction education and the building code. Legislation, policy and standards were not aligned. This new housing accelerator fund can't make this mistake.
This also happened because of what too many non-disabled people—often the gatekeepers for access—think. They sometimes claim that accessibility is more work or special design. Access and accommodations can be explained as burdens or extras. Current designs have been cutting corners on human needs, so our designs are incomplete.
One hundred per cent of us benefit from accommodations, because disability isn't rare but part of being human. Every one of us are born with or get temporary, situational or long-term disabilities due to illness, accident or aging. Demographics are changing. Over 1,000 Canadians a day turn 65. Universal design is better for everyone.
This housing accelerator fund is an investment in our future, and no government money should ever again be spent on creating new barriers. Access to housing for disabled people of all kinds is not a gift, charity, bonus or extra. It's smarter, more responsible and sustainable design. This funding should require #InclusiveFromTheStart, as promoted last week in the 2022 National AccessAbility Week.
I recommend a full, 100% of all qualifying housing to be visitable and adaptable using well-known, decades-old, universal design CSA and CMHC guidelines. Every home should be created to be welcoming and affordable to adapt to unique accessibility needs. One hundred per cent also prevents isolation and supports mental health services, diversity and inclusion, and sustainable design goals.
One hundred per cent makes it easier to implement. We already have the technical details we need to rightsize and cost designs. Seventy per cent of those requirements cost nothing, like pick a different colour for something, install it at a different height or choose different door hardware, etc.
Elements that do cost something cost less to build in than to fix later. In fact, a 2018 WHO study showed that it's 22 times more expensive to fix inaccessible housing than to design inclusion from the start. One hundred per cent is fiscally responsible, especially as our disabled population is disproportionately poor and retired folks living on fixed incomes, as do many others.
Other benefits of funding 100% visitable and adaptable design include, first, helping create the accessible Canada that we talk about in the act. Second, it allows for aging in place. Third, people with disabilities are able to choose any available house they can afford and not have to wait for what small percentage is built for them. Fourth, it allows disabled kids—think at Halloween, for example—and adults to visit any neighbour, friend or family. Fifth, people who get new disabilities can stay living in the homes and neighbourhoods they love without expensive renovations for as long as they want or can.
Thank you very much.