When it comes to building homes that meet the needs of all Canadians regardless of their age, size, ability or disability, there are good intentions and progress on how to make it happen, but we’re failing badly on actually making it happen.

Encouragingly, the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), in collaboration with Accessibility Standards Canada, published the first edition of a national standard for accessible dwellings in January. It’s desperately needed direction amidst a patchwork of design and construction guidelines and codes for accessible dwellings across Canada that largely fail to meet the needs of people with disabilities.

But this is a rare bit of light at the end of a very dark tunnel, as illustrated by the state of all things accessible in Ontario.

Without ‘urgent action’, Ontario will fail to meet the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)’s target of making Ontario accessible by the beginning of 2025. Rich Donovan reached that conclusion in March after extensive consultation with people with disabilities in his interim legislative review of Ontario’s progress in implementing the AODA.

In the report’s conclusion, Mr. Donovan asks Ontario’s premier ‘Do you care?’.

We should all care, and each one of us can do something to meet our shared goal of making Ontario and Canada truly accessible.

At the bare minimum in Ontario, the government needs to push much harder to ensure that all public buildings and services are truly accessible by 2025.

But homes, businesses, transit, outdoor spaces, and job opportunities also need to be accessible. In the area of homes there is immense opportunity.

Millions of new homes need to be built in the next decade to meet Canada’s record-high population growth. Yet without concerted action, the vast majority of these homes will not be accessible to older Canadians and people with disabilities.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2017, one in five (22%) Canadians aged 15 years and over identified as having one or more disabilities and more than half (55.8%) reported having a physical disability. Among those, 44.9% required at least one aid, assistive device or accessibility feature within their home, including ramps, a walk-in bath or shower, a lift device or elevator, lowered counters, or automatic doors.

Yet too many people with disabilities are living in inaccessible homes or in long term care facilities.  Many are experiencing homelessness or dangerous conditions that impact the state of their physical and mental well-being.

The profound lack of accessible housing prevents people from participating fully in family and community life, and from pursuing education and careers.  This can result in disabled people questioning the value of their lives – too many have considered medical assistance in dying (MAID) as their only viable option.

A sign of an inclusive and prosperous country is where people of all ages and abilities can participate fully in society, including having access to homes that are barrier-free. In his report, the AODA reviewer notes that federally regulated entities must remove barriers under the Accessible Canada Act, and that if built environment issues are not addressed, there is a material risk that these entities will not renew lease space in the province. The government is also failing to maximize the talent and tax revenue that 2.9 million people with disabilities contribute to the economy.

And yet, we continue to design and build homes that exclude people living with a disability.

The Accelerating Accessibility Coalition is working to change that.

Launched last fall, the Coalition is a first-of-its-kind community of real estate development and accessibility leaders that is working to create a more accessible Canada.

Luke Anderson of The StopGap Foundation and Heela Omarkhail of The Daniels Corporation have signed on as inaugural Co-Chairs with ULI Toronto as its secretariat. National and local builders and construction companies including Cadillac Fairview, Choice Properties, EllisDon, BentallGreenOak, Percy Ellis, and The Daniels Corporation have publicly signaled their commitment to the coalition’s mission of significantly increasing the supply of accessible housing.

The coalition has launched a toolbox of resources that promote the development of new homes that have accessibility built in, not bolted on afterwards by request and at extra cost to the homeowner or tenant.

This is critical and doable.  Leaders in the home building industry are doing this and so can others.

It’s far past the time for action. Each one of us can and must become part of the solution, contributing to an accessible and more prosperous Ontario by 2025 and a barrier-free Canada by 2040.

Maayan Ziv is founder and CEO, AccessNow. Mitchell Cohen is President and CEO, The Daniels Corporation. Both are founding members of the Accelerating Accessibility Coalition. You can read more about the Coalition at https://toronto.uli.org/programs/the-accelerating-accessibility-coalition/