LET’S member, Gail McCain, volunteered her home to be used for the pilot tool of the NeighbourABLE project, assessing how well housing and neighbourhoods support daily activities for persons with disability. This tool will be tested with diverse residents in Vancouver and Halifax. Following these tests, the project will build a stakeholder network to drive policy change using the project’s findings.
NeighbourABLE is a 3-year project funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) with the goal of developing a tool that assesses “person-environment fit,” defined as how well housing and neighbourhoods fit the needs of residents with disabilities. The tool will collect important data on housing accessibility needs, which housing providers and researchers can use to promote creation of more accessible and affordable housing. We aim to show policy making bodies strong evidence of needs and clear strategies to support social housing sectors.
LET’S was a co-applicant for the NeighbourABLE grant and we are a disability advisor for the project. The goals of the project are: 1) establish a pilot tool that assesses the impacts of fit between ability of persons with disability experience to conduct a set of daily activities and qualities of housing and surrounding neighbourhood; 2) test the pilot tool by assessing the homes of residents who experience a diverse range of disabilities in two Canadian cities (Vancouver and Halifax); and 3) Develop a partnership network of stakeholders to advance orchestrated actions to accelerate creation of more accessible and inclusive neighbourhoods—using the NeighbourAble tool-generated evidence as a launching point of the discourse.