By Spencer Sterritt

In B.C. housing crisis, disabled people facing brunt of vacancy shortage

Oct 14, 2017 | 12:53 PM

NANAIMO — An ultra-low vacancy rate challenges anyone trying to find a place to live in Nanaimo. Now imagine you’re disabled, trying to find an accommodating place with limited funds.

Local disability advocate Richard Harlow, who’s legally blind, struggled for a long time to find a place and in the end lived in apartments he considered unlivable.

“When you’re a person with a disability you’re having to look at multiple extra things. There might be places that are accessible along a bus route, but sometimes the places being advertised should be listed as uninhabitable,” he told NanaimoNewsNOW.

For a time, Harlow lived in an apartment downtown infested with ants, which had no heat and the door wasn’t secure so he heard every altercation in the hallway.

“It’s a ridiculous situation right now.”

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In his role as a mentor to the disabled, Harlow said he’s heard of too many situations where people manage to secure a place only to realize it’s not accessible at all. A friend of his found a place advertised as accessible, but the bathroom door didn’t meet the clearance for his wheelchair. This meant he had to get out of the chair and crawl to the toilet.

Even getting in the door of a house or apartment is a challenge.

“You get denied a place if you say you’re on welfare and you get denied sometimes if you’re a person with a disability because you don’t have a steady income and can’t pay rent maybe.”

Harlow said many times he’s hunted for a place and even found a few which would be ideal, but didn’t get the chance to move in once the landlord or owner discovered he’s blind.

“I’m blind, I can tell from listening to their voice that their tone has changed drastically. They know a person on disability assistance isn’t going to be able to find work in the city because it’s harder to even find an employer who will take you seriously and try to make your workplace accessible.”

As the cost of rent skyrockets, Harlow said the $375 of a disability payment allotted for rent doesn’t come close to covering costs, if it ever did. “Studies have shown when a person has a place to live, other things can fall into place. But if you’re unable to get the bare essentials, like food and heat and soap, you’re not doing well.”

With so many obstacles stacked against them, Harlow said it often feels like the disabled are “second-class citizens, on the outskirts of society.”

Paul Gilbert, a volunteer with the BC Disability Caucus, said it’s a claim he’s heard constantly across the province.

“Making them feeling almost non-human is one of the things people mention. The general perception of people with disabilities is they’re dependent, they’re free-riders, they’re less than.”

After digging into the available data, Gilbert said the last research report he found about the disabled and vacancy rates was from 2002, where it stressed critical problems still being faced today.

“It would be hard for government to understand the disabled well given the quality of data out there. Unless you have an experience with disability it doesn’t really sink in about the marginalization people with disabilities face. You have to be touched by an experience before you really understand it.”

He advocated for the B.C. government to create a disabilities issues ministry to enforce discrimination rules and for the newly revived Human Rights Commission to focus on issues facing the disabled.

“Assault can get you 10 years in prison, but screening someone out of employment or housing so they end up homeless and at risk is a free ride.”

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit