People with physical impairment and social housing

Abstract

Driven by a personal experience, this research focuses on people with physical impairment who, due to financial circumstances, reside in social housing. While the government sustains society by providing social housing as part of a larger strategy to address the most vulnerable in the built environment, certain housing typologies do not provide adequate comfort for particular minority groups. The built environment has played an important role in the day-to-day life of the population and, throughout the years, social housing has been a lifeline to several end-users with low-income to have a sheltered place to claim as their home. While in general, both architecture and disability are researched thoroughly as separate domains, limited contributions are made that bring together social housing and on people with physical impairment as two more defined subtopics of the respective fields. Hence, this qualitative study focuses on the local relationship between social housing and on people with physical impairment I in an attempt to ascertain the barriers that exist between the two. The study will commence by exploring the present and the developing schemes and initiatives in social housing in relation to on people with physical impairments. This will be followed by analysing available international and local literature/research on the topic. The social model of disability and the universal design approach in architecture that will form the conceptual framework of the study will then be discussed. In an effort to better comprehend the barriers and challenges in this sector, semi-structured interviews were organized with eight adult on people with physical impairments who live in social housing. The semi-structured interviews were fruitful in determining several physical, attitudinal, communication and information barriers within the design of the built environment for disabled residents in social housing, from the latter’s perspective. The analysed data will be articulated as themes that may serve as basis for guidelines and parameters in the design of social housing. In conclusion, this research will present the findings’ focal points, the strengths and limitations of the study along with potential recommendations for future research.