Affordable accessible housing in short supply, mother says
Hailey Ross says her family hasn't been able to find a home to accommodate her disabled daughter
The Dartmouth mother of a nine-year-old girl with severe disabilities says finding an affordable and fully accessible rental unit in the Halifax area is like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Willow Ross uses a bulky wheelchair. It took her family six months to find the home they currently occupy, but even it is far from ideal.
The door frames of the bedroom, bathroom and living room are battered from trying to push the wide wheelchair through. And Willow’s mother, Hailey, has to take the girl out of the wheelchair and lower it down the front step in order to get it outside.
“We need a place to get around and finding that is like finding a needle in a haystack,” Hailey Ross told CBC’s Information Morning. “There’s nothing. So it’s a struggle. It’s one of the worst struggles I’ve had to deal with.”
The kitchen, where the family eats, is too small for Willow’s wheelchair, which means the girl has to wait in the living room or bedroom during suppertime.
The house is not structurally strong enough to support a wheelchair lift for the stairs. And the living room is not large enough to accommodate the family and Willow at once.
“It’s nice to have her in the living room with us when we’re sitting down watching TV or sitting down playing or doing arts and crafts,” Hailey Ross said. “It’s nice to have her there, but we can’t. There’s no space.”