Humanitarian crises and the lack of wheelchair user and accessible homes
Anna Landre is an internationally-recognised disability justice activist and a Truman and Marshall Scholar currently based in London, her work has earned invites to the Biden-Harris White House, Brazilian National Congress, and more. Below, she shares the impact that a lack of wheelchair user and accessible homes has on humanitarian crises like the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Disabled people comprise approximately 15% of the world’s population and are among those most at risk in a crisis situation.
Armed conflicts like the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, increasingly severe, climate-driven disasters like wildfires and hurricanes, and emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic all disproportionately impact disabled people — particularly in their intersection with accessible housing.
Accessible, affordable housing for disabled people has the potential to mitigate the effects of a crisis, just as its lack can intensify its negative consequences or create additional emergencies.
Accessible housing & disaster risk reduction
In one of few studies on disability inclusion in humanitarian emergencies, three quarters of disabled respondents report lacking access to “basic assistance” like water, food, health care — and shelter.
Many of the disproportionate risks that disabled people face during disasters are due to socially-constructed vulnerabilities rather than mere biological differences — a fact explored at length by researchers like Maria Kett and Julia Watts Belser. For instance, wheelchair users are more likely to die during a hurricane if there are no accessible evacuation vehicles, and D/deaf or hard of hearing people may not be able to heed audio-only fire alarms.
This is likewise true of accessible housing; when disabled people live in an inaccessible environment that prevents them from carrying out basic tasks like entering and leaving home, preparing meals, or accessing critical supplies with the greatest possible independence, they face much higher risk when disaster strikes and these everyday challenges suddenly have deadly results.
Likewise, the simultaneous breakdown of key services during disasters, like personal care assistance or food delivery, intensifies the consequences of inaccessible housing.
These factors leave disabled people at higher risk of health deterioration, injury, and death, and mean that state or charity-run emergency responses are further overrun with avoidable requests for aid. Shelters provided in disasters are also rarely accessible for disabled people, highlighting the need for increased accessibility in both temporary and permanent housing.
Accessible Housing Amid the War in Ukraine
A pre-war lack of accessible housing stock within and outside Ukraine has led to many continuing, intensified, and new vulnerabilities for disabled Ukrainians in wartime.
Fight for Right (FFR), a Ukrainian Disabled People’s Organisation (DPO) has acted as the main responder to the wartime needs of this community, with the support of The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies. They report a critical need for accessible housing in and outside Ukraine.
Specifically, many of those sheltering in place lack access to basics like electricity (critical for refrigerating medications or powering assistive devices), heating, clean water, and personal assistance.
These needs are especially high among older people.
In terms of short-term shelters inside and outside Ukraine, the United Nations Protection Cluster reported in April 2022 that 90% of their shelters were not accessible to disabled people. Because of such issues, many people with disabilities made the decision not to evacuate their homes despite dangerous living conditions.
There is also a documented lack of long-term accessible housing for those fleeing the war. While some DPOs in countries receiving asylum-seekers were able to offer accessible accommodation at the beginning of the war, they quickly ran out of funding and space. Physical access was not the only issue; people with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities often became distressed and experienced mental health issues in temporary, crowded living situations.
These difficulties have led to the forced institutionalisation of many people with disabilities who formerly lived in their own homes in Ukraine. One refugee transit center reported that in June, “out of 900 people [with disabilities] that came through, two-thirds were sent to institutions”. Notably, the conditions of institutionalisation frequently constitute human rights violations, reduce social inclusion, and result in high costs for governments.
Accessible housing & emergencies in the UK
Unfortunately, the UK’s scarcity of accessible housing stock — deemed a “crisis” in and of itself by the Equality and Human Rights Commission —increases the country’s risk factors in the event of an emergency or disaster, as well as the risk factors of individual disabled people and their loved ones living in these sub-par housing conditions.
This is particularly worrying due to the country’s aging population, cost-of-living crisis, a continuing war in Europe, and the increasing frequency and severity of climate-related disasters such as wildfires.
For the sake of domestic disaster risk reduction, as well as maintaining an ability to absorb potential asylum-seekers fleeing emergencies like the war in Ukraine, it would be in the UK’s interest to increase its accessible housing stock with great haste — before disaster strikes.
