Monday 22 July 2019

Ramp Rebate

Did your kids have a nice school holidays? One with lots of playdates and sleepovers, the stuff that kids’ holidays are made of?

Well, my daughter didn’t really,

You see, she can’t get in to her friend’s houses. That’s right. She literally can’t enter. And this is one of the single most excluding and marginalising issues for her at the moment. Oh, she knows what her friends are up to. She knows who goes to whose house. She is also acutely aware that she is excluded.



I was talking about the social model of disability with her just yesterday. I reminded her that the way her body works means that she has a physical impairment in the sense that she doesn’t walk, and needs a wheelchair to get around independently. She has done so since she was 3, and she has now been using an electric wheelchair for ten years. Her body is just fine the way it is, impairment and all, and in her wheelchair she is very able indeed. What dis-ables her is the way we build our environment. Stairs disable. Curbs disable. Escalators disable. Ramps, curb cuts, travelators, lifts, they allow her the independent movement she so craves. She has a physical impairment but is only disabled because society excludes her.

And while things are slowly (excruciatingly slowly) improving in terms of accessing public spaces, housing, especially private housing, remains largely inaccessible. 

Of course she invites friends to our house, and they come. But remember being a kid? Remember the thrill of going to someone else’s house? The revelation that other people live differently? How they have different types of furniture, different rules in the house, eat different foods and all those mini discoveries of the beautiful human diversity? That is what she misses out on. 

Many of the older houses around us are being demolished and replaced by new kit homes. Why do so many of them have a step to get in? When will the kit home companies finally embrace the principles of Universal Design and build ramps (so much more functional for prams, walking frames, and yes, wheelchairs) instead of steps? We’re not asking the world – she would love to just be able to het into the house, she is realistic enough to be ok with not being able to access the second floor…Just imagine, if as of tomorrow, all new houses would be step-fee!

Of course, that would still leave many older houses inaccessible. So what can be done?
Many houses - and shops for that matter!! - could drastically improve access with a simple rubber wedge from the hardware store. They don’t cost the earth – but they could make a world of difference to my daughter.

This sort of thing:



But hardly anyone has them. People don’t think about it. Just can’t be bothered. 

We have so many worthwhile rebate schemes for sustainability; there are rebates for solar panels and heat pumps, for insulation, for rainwater thanks, green roofs, pool-to-pond conversions, permeable surfaces.

Where are the accessibility rebates?

There are none!!

Why not ??

Imagine if you could get a rebate for that little rubber wedge you got from the hardware store to bridge that one step into your house. Or be able to tax-deduct the building of the entry ramp to your house. Imagine if material to retrofit a house was GST free if it was done for accessibility reasons. Would you do it? Would you do it if you, or your child, knew someone who was a wheelchair user?

People with disability are among the most socially marginalised in our society. They are literally excluded from entering our lives.

My daughter’s next school holidays could be radically different if there was a ramp rebate scheme.

I can dream, right?