While the majority of Australians do not experience disability, statistics show that around one-in-four, or nearly four million people, does have at least one disability, with ageing known to increase the likelihood. Many are not living in housing circumstances that meet their needs.
In his introduction to the Royal Commission into Disability’s report of 2023, the chair Ronald Sackville AO KC stressed the importance of transforming Australia “into a more inclusive society that supports the independence of people with disability”.
Along with safe and appropriate public spaces and welcoming communities, a key to attaining this independence is suitable housing, whether to buy or rent, with accessibility and design being major factors in determining whether a home is a secure and practical space or a challenging environment requiring extensive modification. If proper retrofitting is not possible – for whatever reason – the occupant/s may need to seek other accommodation, which is likely to be expensive and personally upsetting.
Yet this could easily and inexpensively be averted, as Kim Samuel explains in the work she has undertaken with the support of the Churchill Trust’s Impact Funding Program.
‘Many things in and around a home can impact on people with disability, including wheelchair access, perhaps the commonest inhibitor, visual hazards, confusing sounds and colours, the shape of rooms, protruding surfaces such as benchtops, and more,’ she says.
U-shaped kitchens are a significant impediment, while toilet and bathroom walls that are not re-inforced (cement or brick) cannot provide proper support for essential grab rails.
‘People without disability, including the designers of most residential development projects, seldom consider such things properly, nor, in the main, do those who manage the state and territory building codes.’
In 2019, Ms Samuel, a NSW-based urban planner with expertise in high density building development, travelled to the USA and Israel as part of her Churchill Fellowship to explore innovative options for disability housing that make user-choice central to the design and build process.
Previously, Ms Samuel had been the Director of Service Reforms at the NSW Land and Housing Corporation where she facilitated and project-managed major government reform and policy programs, particularly as they related to affordable and social housing across NSW. She well understands the role of government in the broader housing market, and says that if new projects are to meet the various disability guidelines there must be ‘legislative teeth’.
Common-sense applies, for example she advocates for real estate websites such as Domain.com.au and realestate.com.au to provide filters allowing tenants to search by accessibility levels.
Ms Samuel’s well-argued and superbly designed Churchill Fellowship report, Accessible Housing & Inclusive Communities, noted that while 26 per cent of people have a disability, less than 6 per cent of the national housing supply is designed to be accessible. It is a massive, indeed discriminatory, disparity that clearly needs to be addressed.
‘As housing communities are created, they don’t often meet the diverse accessibility and inclusion needs of people with disabilities’, she noted.
On a personal note, Ms Samuel wrote, ‘Although at times I have struggled to complete daily tasks without assistance, I do not identify as having a disability. Many disabilities are hidden, and many people with disabilities feel that they must hide their differences… We need to change the environment in which we live, work, and play to remove any barriers or biases that make disabilities a limiting factor.’
She added, ‘The benefits of embedding equity into our built environment are widespread, however, no holistic guidelines define an implementable, progressive approach to creating truly accessible and inclusive housing.’
Since completing her Fellowship and spending more years in this field, Ms Samuel became a recipient of a Churchill Trust Fellow Impact Funding Grant, an initiative to enhance the outcomes of Churchill Fellows’ research and subsequent professional achievements. She has used this funding to explore how the homes of people with disability might best be improved through guidelines and/or regulations that are adopted voluntarily in the marketplace or may need to be mandated by government.
Her response has been to draft a detailed set of Inclusive Australian Design Standards for Access and Inclusion in Residential Development, which, she believes, will be a valuable roadmap towards improving the wellbeing and safety of residents with disability in all new residential development projects in Australia.
Based on her experience, Ms Samuel understands the road is a complex one that involves widespread input from diverse stakeholders, including disability communities, professional bodies, government entities and, in order to finalise the process, politicians who may need to effect legislative change.
‘The aim is to equip designers, builders, and developers with guidelines and frameworks for disability-forward housing creation,’ Ms Samuels says, adding, ‘These Design Standards could be applied to all housing development in Australia and extended to other parts of the built environment.
‘Importantly, universal design needs to be factored into the full lifecycle of a project from design process through to operational aspects.’
Ms Samuel is working in close partnership with the Australian Human Rights Commission, which believes the project aligns with its reform agenda and highlights the absence of comprehensive inclusivity guidelines in Australia and the ongoing demand for accessible housing.
Mr Samuel estimates a minimum timeframe of two years before what seems a common-sense resolution to this long-standing problem can be embedded in law and building code practice.
The guidelines she has developed were distributed for stakeholder feedback in mid-2024 and information sessions were held with various professional bodies, including the Planning Institute of Australia and The University of Sydney’s School of Architecture Design and Planning, as well as disability organisations and government entities.
She says, ‘The Guidelines bring together all accessibility requirements and best-practice innovations into one comprehensive framework for creating accessible residential spaces. They have been designed to be used by anyone involved in designing, delivering, and/or managing housing and housing policy in Australia.
‘The Guidelines aim to improve housing accessibility and enhance community inclusion for people with disability. They specifically address the need to ensure all housing is constructed in a way that not only meets minimum accessibility standards but can exceed these through thoughtful, innovative, flexible, and inclusive cross-disability approaches to universal design that benefits all people.
‘Housing based on universal design also minimises the costs of retrofitting housing for accessibility as our population ages and allows people to remain within their community as they age.
‘Design that embraces diversity maximises widespread access and usability and is a powerful source of innovation and creativity, delivering cost savings across multiple sectors including the health and justice systems.’
Stressing that she is not a commercial builder, Ms Samuel says the upfront outlay of undertaking such work when planning a standard residential apartment in an Australian city would be far lower than the cost of retro-fitting houses to meet the growing demand for accessible dwellings.
As she said in her Fellowship report, ‘The voice of people with lived experience in disability must be incorporated into all housing design and delivery, as well as policy development and strategic planning for our cities and communities.
‘Listening to people with disabilities and their families has been shown to deliver better outcomes and innovations in a number of case studies. A panel of experts on inclusive design, with lived experience with disabilities, should inform all major design and planning policies relating to housing and community development.’
This focus is central to the guidelines she has drafted and that are now being discussed in a broad consultation driven by the influential Australian Human Rights Commission. The process may have been slow to date, but it is gathering pace and the support of the Churchill Trust’s Impact Funding has been crucial for its advance.
‘At present’, Ms Samuel says, ‘the lives of thousands of people are in uncomfortable limbo while they look for or await housing that is appropriate for their life circumstances. It’s a basic human rights issue, and while it can’t be resolved overnight, these important steps towards implementing proper design guidelines will improve the wellbeing of so many people in the future.
‘It’s a win-win, because there’s obviously a strong market for properties designed for people with disability, both on the owner-occupier and rental markets, including the massive social housing builds that governments are now undertaking because of the housing and homelessness crisis.’