Գ shows just how many people with disability languish on waiting lists, including for priority housing.
According to the , 5.5 million or 21.4% of the population have a disability, 15% of whom are under 65 and 52.3% are 65 or more.
The wait list is log jammed while are scarce Իthe wait time for grows longer. The ageing population also rose 17% overall in the last census.
On top of , of liveable public housing and the creeping privatisation of social and community housing, people with a disability are left at significant additional risk of .
The Physical Disability Council of NSW said of the 1.3 million people in New South Wales who live with a physical disability,
Yet NSW Labor the most basic construction solutions, despite accessibility standards being introduced.
NSW Greens Legislative Council Member Abigail Boyd has been seeking to improve this. Her included a rally, in August last year, on the steps of NSW Parliament to protest Labor’s repeated refusal to adopt the for minimum housing accessibility requirements in all new builds.
both recommended such standards be introduced.
ճ in June backed Boyd’s call for action. “The disability community is disappointed that NSW Government is yet to adopt the National Construction Code Silver Level Livable Design Standards, meaning new housing will be inaccessible for people with physical disabilities. We call on the government to adopt these principles or outline a plan to address the severe lack in accessible housing for people with physical disability,” it said on June 21.
the accessibility standards call for bare minimum changes which, based on other states, adds about 1% to the cost of new builds. An average developer makes a 20% profit margin. Retrofitting new builds is “prohibitively expensive”.
“The silver standard is actually really simple requiring there be at least one level access to the home, one toilet on the ground floor, that corridor and hallway widths allow a wheelchair (or walker) and that bathrooms have reinforced walls that you could put railings on if you wanted to in the future.”
Boyd said the government was more concerned with protecting developers’ profits than providing genuine housing affordability including for people with disability.
“If you’re excluding all of the people with disability in the state, as well as anybody who wants to age in their place, and anyone else with mobility needs, or who has a friend who wants to visit and has mobility needs, it’s extraordinary to think that those people are not considered when it comes to thinking about what affordable housing means,” said Boyd.
“It absolutely has to be accessible, but the government won’t do it.”
Boyd recently asked housing minister Rose Jackson to provide data on the total community housing that is available and what percentage were disability friendly. Boyd said Jackson’s response was “The [calculation] is too hard to do”. “I said: ‘You know what's hard, Minister? Finding a house to live in when you are a person with mobility needs’.”
Boyd said she is sick of seeing ministers in every portfolio area putting people with a disability at the bottom of the priority list. She noted that an “incredibly small amount” — $8 million of new funds — had been allocated in the latest budget for “accessibility and inclusion” initiatives.
Boyd said that to be “dismissive of almost 1.5 million people living with a disability” reflects an “ableist attitude”. She said that a “lack of inclusion” permeates parliament.
The disability community are furious at the government’s failure to implement even basic recommendations of the , the and countless Ի.
In a sign of just how the disability community are, some say privately that new MPs should be forced to spend a couple of days of their parliamentary orientation either blindfolded or in a wheelchair, while experiencing unsuitable housing.