When it comes to a recent interview with a company organization that goes out to city buildings a in order to measure the effectiveness of getting accessibility measures applied, there is much to be desired. The company needed to understand some of the rules and applications for the improvement of building standards in English. That is where I came in as a person familiar with technical words that had to be occasionally translated from another language.
I was told of their program to initiate and follow up on the application of accessibility measures. One city building in Montreal North was reported to have no rear exit that would be accessible to a wheelchair person for example. It appears that if landlords can get away without doing what is necessary to make their building livable for disabled tenants, they will. Then again companies like this should have stronger means in ensuring corrective building measures be made.
. When it comes to a small landlord, one excuse for not adding a ramp would be lack of funds or his inability to get subsided by the municipality.
For those unfamiliar with the topic, think of the student who cannot get into class because she has to walk up some stairs and there is no front ramp that gets into the school building. Many of the older school buildings still do not have ramps leading to the front entrance. So the disabled student is obliged to enter from another door, hopefully at ground level.
This change is yet trivial to a number of alterations, which would make indoor life horrendous for the disabled person in a wheelchair. He has to have countertop areas accommodated so that his wheelchair can fit underneath if he is to be independent. He has to be able to maneuver the corridors to his apartment door and the widths of the hallways have to be wider than the wheel width. Now the hallway widths in specialized housing were not always up to par until recently because from whoever designed hallway widths, some forgot about the fact the wheelchair person has have enough girth to be able to turn from the corridor into his apartment!
It wasn't until recently that restrooms for men and women had no accommodation for wheelchair people. The bathroom stall doors were all the same width and there was no margin for maneuverability. Today many of the larger cafes have overcome that restriction by installing facilities for everyone. But it can still be a nightmare especially in small towns where there are no Starbucks or Second Cups.
If a person becomes disabled while in a normal dwelling he may approach his landlord and ask to have certain alterations including the lowering of light switches. He may on the other hand be better off moving to a subsidized housing center where those alterations already exist.. He should try to get a reduction in the rent by going to a rental board if the landlord is not accommodating. That may mean going on welfare.
Accessibility des not just mean dealing with the wheelchair person. There are a myriad of disabilities. One may have a visual impairment and need to have a fluorescent yellow strip painted or installed on the top and bottom of the stairway flight in his home, at the office or in the public transport system. A hearing impaired person would have to have proper hearing aids and learn how to lip read. Today hearing aids come with the ability to hear a phone ring and cut off the background noise. If the disabled person has lost his ability to grip then handles around the house would have to be modified to allow him easy access.
Teaching at this company was rewarding experience. This was not only from the point of view of discussing a new topic in English but in being able to learn what landlords are most likely to apply changes and which are not. It also taught me how naïve I was about how much getting around the city could be a struggle for the disabled.
