Yes, I can hear you. Please stand by for realtime relay captions. .
Hi. Okay. Ready to go? Okay. Good morning and thank you for coming. Number one, and number two, thank you for inviting me to speak to you about the paper I did researching for my master's program. Just to make sure you're in the right place, I will be presenting on influencing change in the U.K. and the U.S. My night is Diane Bright. Next slide. So if we look at the next slide -- program that I'm currently enrolled in. It's a masters in accessibility and inclusive design, from the University of Salford, who is actually university that is an expert in inclusive design. And if you show the next slide -- Why the yiewferd of Salford? First, I those it because I wanted to increase my global awareness of inclusive design. I have been working in that area for a long time, and I -- with the world getting flat, I thought it would be really good to connect to a university that was overseas. But the University of Salford is a leading expert in inclusive design. They built a human environment in the U.K. and provided internet courses for over 12 years. They have been awarded prizes in terms of their research, and they are research-based, but their research is in the real world. That would take another lecture to talk to you about, but it would be interesting par you, if your interested to look at that. I will have information at the end of the presentation.
Also, I'm presenting to you an independent project that was part of my coursework and it is a condensed version of that. So when I get to the different topics, if there are things that you are interested in, that information is expanded ten-fold in the research that I've done. I hope to show you dod a vignette of what that research was and then hopefully open things up for questions. Jordana is going to be speaking after me. We are going to tag team here. We will wait until the end of our presentations for questions. So let's get started here. Next slide. Home is where the heart is. There is no place like home. A man's home is his castle. Each of these statements bring a personal connection to a specific-built space, a place you call home, in any language. If your home uses limited design, such as steps, narrow doorways, second floor bathroom locations, you home may be limiting the things that can go on in that home and possibly the visiting options as well. Next slide. So your building that you're living in may be excluding people just because of its design. So my house can no longer be your house. Because that house is architecturally disabled from people using it. That whole introduction kind of puts in a nutshell the U.K. and U.S. disability perspectives. Talking about the social model of disability and medical model of disability. Speaking to these alone could take another lecture, but to condense that, the social model looks at decreased participation as being a result of changeable features of society. It can be anything from prejudice to accessibility. The medical model looks at that as a result of impairment or disability, not the result of things that society can change. The U.K. and the learning program that I'm involved in is very much reflecting the social model of disability. And you're going to see that when we look at what influences change in getting inclusive design into rez denresidential builds. Next slide. .
In doing this independent project, many questions were raised when I began my research. Because the United States did not have, and is working on it still, a national legislation and regulation, at the time I was doing my research, and the U.K. did, I wanted to know why, what barriers there were to establishing a national inclusive design standard in the U.S. And I wanted to know, did the U.K. experience these barriers? How were these barriers overcome? What has the U.K. learned over time with record to application of part M, which is their legislative piece, and what could the U.S. learn from the U.K. experience. Also, what would most influence that change. Was it legislation? Advocacy groups? Design professionals? Builders? Consumers? Any of those things? All of those things. So let's look at the next slide and talk about U.K. legislation. U.K. legislation is approximately seven years ahead of where we are with introducing visibility laws. They have had that in effect for over seven years now. And as we speak and prior to this speaking, they are re-looking at that basic law to ramp it up, so to speak. To include more in their legislation. So they are taking what we are getting started with now and already looking at a new and improved model. Next slide.
The model is part M. It was adopted into the U.K. building standard in 1999, seven years ago, to provide basic access in new home builds, including private home builds, not just government-based. This is all homes in the U.-K There are basic requirements to part M. This slide represents what I would call layperson language. Part M is a document with all the measurements and the details that you can imagine in other regulations. But basically, it is regarding the approach to the building, to the home. It needs to be wide enough for wheelchair use. It needs to be level. It needs to have an accessible threshold. Sound familiar? Doorways wide enough for access, communal stairs in multiresidential homes, special features, switches and sockets at good locations and entry level WC, which is a water closet, which to us is a half bathroom, needs to be accessible to wheelchair users. So this is the basic requirement. Next slide. .
Time of the build and then -- allow for easy modifications to the structure if future needs of the homeowner Dick Kate. Let's pull up the next slide. You can get it on the Joseph Roundtree location, but it bisects a home that is a multilevel, two-story home, and shows you where those features would be in the home. What I will do right now is mention some of the features that we don't see in part M or in terms of visibility. What you see is you have walls that are built so they are not -- so they are easily removable, rather, so they can open up the living space. If you look at the upper floor of the home, you can remove a wall that was a second room and open up the living space to a bedroom for care needs T. bathroom wall can do the same. The ceiling is prepped for an overhead lift system already. There is a space in the flooring, which would be the ceiling of the lower level, that has already been prepped to just push -- what I've just done is I'm going to take over the room and make the slides work. I was not able to interrupt the presentation in order to do that. So please stand by and I am going to take over changing the slides so that you see them and you get as much as you can out of the presentation. Be right back. [Pause in captions] Everybody should now see what will most influence change. If that is correct, just type me a note and let me know, yes. Okay. I'm going to go to the next slide. And you should see UK legislation. Thank you. Okay. I am going to go to the next slide, and we shall see part M. Now, when the speaker comes back on, when they log back on, we will let them take over, and I will control the slides. I think it's the equipment -- it's the laptop that is being used at the university that is just not performing exactly right. We are currently on slide 13. I won't try to pronounce your name because I will embarrass myself. You're welcome. We'll stand by for the speaker to realize that I removed them from the room, and they will come back in again. Hopefully, the speaker will log back in again. Please stand by, and thank you for your patience. I'm going to change one more slide and hopefully, they will come back into the room very quickly. [Waiting for speaker to begin] .
Steve, I wonder if the team realizes that the presenter would still be presenting on site. .
I don't think so, because they're not in the room. Okay. Stand by. I'm going to try to contact them. [Standing by] Yes, for those of you in the room, we do not have audio because we lost the speaker. And we're waiting for them to log back into the room. And we're not sure why they haven't. So our apologies. I assume you can hear me, is that correct? Thank you Ellen, Terry, Mike, and Bette, and the captioner. I won't forget you -- I'll just call you N Rito. Thanks, Greg. I have a feeling that the speaker may be addressing the local audience, as Pat indicated. Well, thanks for the compliment. You just won a free something or other. Weil have to figure out what that is, but apparently, the presentation is being given successfully to the local audience, and they're not aware that it's not being given at a distance. So for those of you that really wanted to see this presentation, I mean, you paid for a conference, what we can do is have the presenter record the presentation online and we can put it up in the ar chive. That's something that we normally do anyhow, and that will permit you to go back in and actually listen to the speaker presenting. You will hear them with no crackle, and you will be able to enjoy the presentation much more so than just seeing a slide up on the screen. Good question. May Rhea asked, how could that be done with captions? We should simply ask the presenter to provide a transcript of what they're saying. Most often, to develop a good online presentation, you develop a script, and you include the trip and Scripp with the presentation when -- script with the presentation when it's archived. That's what we will do for this. Was it Diane that was the speaker in this room -- forgive me for not remembering, I didn't want to have to exit the room to find out. Yes, it was. Okay. Thank you very much, Terry and Nancy. Well, I am going to enable everybody's audio and in that way, if you happen to have a microphone, maybe we could do a di log and -- dialog and I will just let whoever wishes to try to speak, hold down their control key, and if they have a microphone, speak into the microphone. Go ahead, Nancy, we'll see if we can hear you.
Can you hear me? .
No, actually using microphones takes a little bit of practice, and we would ask that people come in the room first. But this would be a good time, since there is nothing else that we could do at this point for everyone to network, I don't know if everyone knows everyone else, and I thought that you may want to -- if you want to, I don't want to make you do something that you don't want to do, but if you'd like, you can type to each other, I think. Let me see if we can do that. Well, not easily. Well, would somebody else like to try talking? Hold your control key down and we will turn things over to you. Okay, Bette.
Hi. I'm wondering if anyone in the room is from the UK.
I heard you loud and clear. Go ahead, Nanty. .
I don't think you could hear me. .
The answer is yes, you can type there. You can type in the text chat. You can talk, and I will synchronize the presentation hopefully, so that everybody sees the actual numbers of the presentation at the bottom of their screen. And can everyone see the Pour Pont presentation numbers at the bottom of their screen? .
Yes.
Okay, Renee, try pressing the F5 Dee or click on prouder, refresh, and that will refresh your browser. I will try updating it again here, and in that way, hopefully provide all of you access to the Power Point presentation. I'm going to refresh it again. I hear applause coming from room 1. They may be finished. I will let you click on the slides. Can everybody see the actual slide numbers now? If I leave it the way it is, you should be able to click on slides and see them yourself. And let me stop talking for a second. I had to take myself off of synchronize, because whenever I click on a slide you could see it. Rick can see the slide numbers. Let me do a refresh and see if that helps. Everybody stand by for just a second. Okay. You should now see the numbers again at the bottom of the screen, and be able to click on a slide. And view it. And if anyone can't, let me know. You got it back by clicking on slide 13. That's good. That means you have access to the numbers. Margaret, your screen is blank. Try clicking on browser and then refresh. And see if that shows the slide numbers on the bottom. If that didn't work, you can try clicking on the link located inside the text area. That, too, should bring up the presentation. Well, I'm glad something worked. And once you click on the link and the text chat, you can selectively go through the presentation. I see there are 33 people in the room and I'm very pleased that you have opted to stick with us rather than disconnect. It appears that some of the equipment at OSU needs to be optimized, like laptops and remote mics and all, and we can easily get around that -- that is, when we have a speaker in the room. And patsy is in Canada and can control everything, as can I, and I am in Columbus, Ohio. If anybody would like to try talking, you can hold down your control key. With 32 people and possibly as many as 70 in a room, it becomes impractical because we only let one person speak at a time. But we have found this infrastructure contrary, to what you might think now, very, very effective in remote presenting and in collaboration. Go ahead, Tina. I saw Tina pushing down her control key, which fools me into thinking that she might want to talk. If anyone would like to try talking, please feel free do so, assuming you have a mic, and hold down your control key and talk.
Can anyone hear me? I was wondering when the next speaker will come on.
Oh, yes, we can hear you beautifully. And I don't have the schedule in front of me. I'm trying to coordinate the technology. So if you stand by, I will take a look at let you know. .
I have it in front of me, Steve. I'm looking right now.
I'll bet you're looking with braille, aren't you? .
Oh, gee. Now the secret is out. Yes, I am. .
Okay. We'll stand by for you to tell us who the next speaker is. If anybody else would like to cry talking, you certainly may. Say hi to somebody that you haven't seen in a while, which is actually quite neat when we do these things online, it's quite easy for people to talk to each other in different parts of the world and actually have better quality than you might expect. Better than a telephone. .
I have to use two hands to read braille, and as Steve staid, I am reading braille. I am Pat seed from Canada. I also use the jaws screen reading program. The next session is a luncheon plenary session which begins at noon. It Goss from 12:00 to 12:15. And it is in this room. And it is Valerie Fletcher. And it's going to be -- she's the inclusive director for adaptive environments in Boston, Massachusetts. And she's -- is going to be speaking about the new definition of disability master planning opportunities. .
It's good to hear jaws working in this format. .
Actually, it's quite amazing in designing the system we're using now, it is compatible with Jaws and Window Eyes. You can partner with organizations like Caption Colorado to provide live captions. It is also compatible with speech recognition engines and screen magnification applications. So go ahead. You left the room, and we were trying to tell you that the slides were not advancing. I will advance the slides for you. If you tell me which slide you would like to be on -- browser refresh to make sure that the slides change. So every once in a while, if you could pause, I will make sure the slides change and we should be okay. .
Here we go. These images are really depekt the essence of the housing problem today. On the left, if you can see, is homes that were built with steps at all entrances, which make it difficult for people to enter and exit. People with disabilities, parents pushing strollers, carries groceries, into a a house. On the right, you have homes built using an inclusive design strategy, which allows all to enter conveniently and easily. The problem lies in the fact that most homes today are built like the one on the left. So the vast majority of new single family homes and townhomes are corrected with barriers such as steps at all entrances, narrow hallways and impassable bathroom doors. Since most people in the tirve in this kind of housing, the lack of accessibility, the neighbors are placed at a significant disadvantage. We're not talking about a few people this is affecting. A large number of people in the U.S. have mobility impairments. This includes people who use assistive devices such as wheelchairs, walkers, canes, diseases such as multiple sclerosis and other things that make steps difficult to negotiate. It is difficult to determine the actual number of people with dissents in the U.S. today. The most recent data is from 1994, and from that, it shows that 35% of the population -- 5% of the pope luges use a mobility impairment. That means over 14 million Americans use such a device. The gap in the need for accessible housing is important when you look at the national survey, and it shows that less than 3% of Americans lived in homes with any kind of accessibility feature, but 30% of families contain at least one member with a disability. So the gap is there. A survey by AARP shows that 1 million households have a resident with a housing need. Consequences of these barriers are often quite harsh. First, you have socialized relations. Steps at all entrances prevents people from inviting others to their home. Then you have compromised health and safety. Many people with severe imapartments cannot enter or exit their own homes easily, and in case of morning, they cannot enter or exit independently. And they risk injury if they are being carried out or from falling in case of emergency. Narrow bathroom doors keep wheelchair users from being able to enter their own bathrooms and need to rely an less sanitary methods, such as commodes. Now, no known data exists to indicate Kate how many nursing home residents -- they are partly Tuesday to lack of accessible housing, but evidence apounds to indicate that when heme are released from the hospital after a broken hip or a stroke, they can't return to their own homes. So they are forced to go into some type of assisted living.
This problem will only increase over time. Next slide. The count's pop Haitian is experiencing -- population is experiencing a drastic transformation. An aging revolution is under way, whereby a growing segment of the population is under the age of 65. Many trends, including baby boomers, lower birth rates and longer life spans are combining to create this trend. Since 1900, the percentage of Americans 65 and over has more than tripled from 4.1% to 12.4%. The actual number of elderly citizens increased 11 times. Projections indicate that the number of persons aged 65 and older will grow to almost 40 million by the year 2010 and 70 million by the year 2030. In addition to living longer, people are now living longer with disabilities. The same advancements in medicine and technology that have allowed us to increase the human life span now enable people to survive accidents and illnesses that were once fatal. So even though older people are living longer, they are living with lessened abilities. Now, the overall proportion of elderly Americans with a chronic disability actually declined, but the number of older Americans with a disability contses to rise. That's because the rate of growth for the overall fop lags is greater than the disabilities rate, rate of decline. So regardless of this, the need for more accessible housing are only going -- is only going to grow. Now, besides the aging of the 307 lags, another factor contributing to today's housing problem is a lack of federal legislation encouraging accessibility in housing. The fair housing amounts of 1988 require all newly corrected, both public and private homes with four or more units to be accessible. These regulations not aemploy to single family housing and exclude a large segment of the housing supply. .
Besides the social impact of inaccessible housing in neighborhoods, research shows that there is also a major health impact. There has been a lot of news releases recently on the impact of sprawl and of obesity. How the environment can lead to obesity. And basically, people's environments greatly impacts what activity they can and can't do. So if homes and neighborhoods are inaccessible and not usable to a large segment of the population, they become isolated and have less ability to interact and become active. This is data from the CDC which shows the tremendous increase in obesity. So just some stay tis ticks. From 1976 to 1994, the number of U.S. adults rose from 47% to 56%, and by 1999, had risen to 61%. More disturbance is the prevalence of overweight children and adolescents doubled. So this has some health impacts. For those of you who don't know, visittability is an affordable approach that targets single family homes, that are not addressed by other legislation. Originating in Europe, the visittability movement was started in the U.S. by Eleanor Smith and her group in 1976. They be -- 1986. They began seeking ways to make all homes not covered by current regulations accessible ability. This was conceived as a way to provide basic access to sing m family -- single family homes. We'll just go back. What that slide shows is that there is really a three-fold rationale to visittability. The first is that social participation is a civil right. It's based on the idea that inclusion of basic architectural features in all new homes is a human right and improves every person's right to see people. People should be able to take advantage of visitation, child care, and in most neighborhoods, a barrier is the lack of opportunity to visit and socialize with neighbors in their homes. And with only a few homes or apartment units that have full access, there are some unfortunate results. People with mobility impairments are confined to their own homes or segregated. They must find a new place to live or wait for repairs to their own homes, which can be expensive, and renovations to create accessible entrances after the fact often require more awkward solutions that reinforce the stereotypes and stigmas. So the concept of visittability creates an opportunity for all the neighbors in a community to socialize, help each other, and interact in a variety of ways. Now, the second idea is that access is cost-effective if planned in advance. If accessibility -- planned during the early stages of design and development rather than after construction, it's not only easier, but more economical, and makes construction of attractive solutions ease yesh when they are incorporated from the beginning. This shows the comparisons of a visittability home during a new construction and a retrofit. So you can see the wide differences there. .
Speaking about visittability --
There is the idea this simplicity promotes implementation. Prioritizing access features makes legislation more simplistic and easier to adopt. Long, non-prioritized lists have created the idea that all access features are equally urgent, and if you can't accomplish all of them, there is no real need to attempt any of them. Further insight into this idea of adoption and simplicity comes from Everett Rogers and his theory of invasion diffusion. His idea is any invasion before it becomes adopted follows a five-step cyclical process on the left. You persuade key decision makers, -- worth adopting, they decide to adopt it, they implement it, and feed aback on the -- feedback on the solutions that are made. We know from his research that will are different at ribts that can influence the adoption rate. The newest technology comes out and then the next thing is out there, whereas, some things have a slower adoption rate. He argues that for an invasion to be adopted more quickly, one thing you can do is reduce the complexity of the invasion. -- innovation. I'm not going to go into all five, due to time. So that parallels this idea of visittability only being three features. It's easy to remember, and it's more likely to be adopted that way, is the theory. [No audio] visit or live in a home at least temporarily. Some visittability programs have other features like the bedroom on the first floor, restrictions on the height of environmental controls, grab bars in bathrooms, but for a visittability home, it only needs these three features. Several states and municipals across the country have adopted these programs and others are working towards their adoption. Next slide. .
Could you click on browser, synchronize browsing, and it will bring your slides in sync? In the audience, we're not seeing that. So click on browser, refresh, and click on the current slide, and we will be all set.
You have state programs, local programs, and the new federal bill. You have the scope of the visittability programs where sum just require those three features, some go further with the others that I mentioned, and you have variation and enforcement. You have some mandatory programs and some voluntary programs, whether they are cash incentives or just awareness programs. So what I try do is break it down where they fit, comparing the mandatory and voluntary public-funded, etc. And the latest one is the Michigan -- the Michigan ordinance that was passed and became effective June 9, 2006. January 1 of 2007, at least 50% of single family and two-family homes constructed with Michigan state housing development funds must be made with homes that have at least no step entrance, 36-inch wide doorways and a first floor bathroom. They hope it will change the mindset of people who say it can't be done. So we're not shooting for a lot of homes to be built, but it all about getting the word out there and getting consumers to buy into it.
Could you possibly click on wrowz browser and re -- browser and refresh browsing? Thank you.
Spreadsheets are available on our website, which I will show you at the end. If you don't see your home city or state out there and you know there is a program, I'd love to hear about it. .
So what this shows is just the trend in adoption of visittability programs over the past, you know, 16, years. What I have included is both state and city local programs, and it includes programs that just required those three features, but also ones that go above that. I used the most basic definition of visitable, so anything that incorporates those are listed here. Right now, there are 44. .
Although no federal law currently mandates compliance with the program, the bill was introduced by a representative from Illinois, and the bill currently has 36co-sponsors.
To be built with a no-step entrance, 32-inch clearance, and one wheelchair-accessible bath ROM. Bathroom.
This graph shows not only 44 that have been passeded but different cities and states that have expressed interest or have some kind of movement or initiative under way, from it's being talked about to waiting to be signed and adopted. So that range is there. But you can see there is a gap between what's being adopted and what's being proposed. I think it's a little too early to say that something is blocking bills from being passed because it does take so long for a program to come in place. But if we followed this over the next five request years or so, it will be interesting to see if this gam exists or if it is being closed. Seeing that gap triggered something in me. What's going on? Is there something going on that is preventing things from -- visittability programs from being passed? And that brought me to -- .
Looking at some possible barriers that are out there and wider policy issues.
After speaking with some planning offices and different places that have passed programs or are working on passing programs, these five things often came up as reasons why they are having difficulty getting visittability programs passed. First is cost of information. There are a few studies that are out there about what are the cost impacts of including these features, but more research needs to be done on that. Another are the biggest legal restrictions. A cup of states have a law that suggests that local cities in the state can't pass laws that are more restrictive than what the state has. New York and California are two places that have that. So though places like Rochester and Syracuse have programs, they can only do voluntary programs because the state has not passed a visitable law. Diane mentioned homebuilders, and there are technical things about getting a group together. You get attrition and other complications just in the political process. And then you have some larger policy issues that really need to be addressed. The first is visittability tends to conflict with another residential design philosophy that is really taking off, called new urbanism. For those of you not familiar, that is a design trend that strives to make communities more walkable, more livable, return to center cities and mixed use, which is all very well and good. But one thing that they do tend to introduce to most of their developments are homes with steps at the entrance and porches slightly off the street to create that sense of privacy. The good news is that advocates from the visitable and universal design community and representatives from the congress of new urbanism have met at the recent conference at the beginning of June, Eleanor Smith was there, so dialog is under way to merge the two philosophies so they can work together. Another idea of social participation versus aging in place. There is often confusion cur surrounding, and while they share some characterristics, the goals are different. Visittability is not aging in place, it is achieving basic access to allow people to increase their ability to participate in the community.
And then there is often disagreements among the advocates themselves. Some advocates push for more than just though three features. If we're going to do all this work, we might as well include the other features into programs and initiatives. Others say simplicity is the best. Something is better than nothing. And then there is often discussion over which type of program is better -- mandatory and voluntary. I actually took that last one a step further and was trying to track the number of homes in vocations that had -- locations that had passed visittability praments if one influenced the number of homes that were built as a result. Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with that. One, they don't tend to track the number of homes that are built after it is passed, and after the work to get a program in place, some places don't build homes. The number of homes that are built are negligible. And for a variety of reasons, homes are not being built in enough quantity to be able to make a fair assessment. .
So just to wrap up, there is a lack of accessible single family housing in the U.S. Visittability is the first to address the need for more accessible housing, and these policies need to be explored further to ensure that more homes are visitable and more homes are built. My contact information and the website at the end, if you just had a slash and visittability afterwards, you will see different papers and presentations and those spreadsheets that are accessible in a variety of formats from our website. I wanted to mention one thing at the idea center, we host a listserv that I am moderator of, so if you're interested in participating in that, you can wire and just listen to what people are talking about. People ask questions about how do we get stepless entrances, we are talking to other advocates in how they succeeded in getting a program in their location. If your interested in information on how to subscribe or talk to you and I will write your name down and subscribe you as soon as I get back to the office. Thank you. [ Applause ] Yes? If I had a pen with me -- .
In your discussion, one of the organizations that is taking the statistics on the number of people who need accessible housing is ADAPT. I don't know if anyone here is from the organization, ADAPT here? They are working on a bill called the new casa bill, for choice making for people with disability. What is involved is Very effective, and your advocacy is crucial. They have tons of people, of representatives as well as senators in this. Find out if your senator and your Representative can sponsor the bill. CASSA, all capital letters. The other thing is, one of the major issues that I found was the lack of knowledge of what's available in their community. If they're not connected to a department of aging or a social service agency. So we need more information in the libraries and seen your centers as well as parents of children with disabilities. Because visittability is something that is important for life span. If you're working in a school system, something like that could be passed out to parents of children with disabilities. And housing, there is the single family housing that is visittability. In Eleanor Smith's community they passed ordinances on housing that was newly-built, and this was single family homes had to be built in certain areas with siftability features. Eleanor didn't know about that until somebody told her about this. This happened in Baltimore,. There was a one-hour presentation to the department of community development, Baltimore city, and a year later, the whole community of visitable homes was built with Section 8 money. I called the independent living center, and they didn't pick up on this area of advocacy. They could have taken that and -- housing project that I know of now. And there are many other housing projects. So get your independent living center to promote this with you. Because one person and one agency is not going do it.
Also promoting visittability with adaptability is really ideal. But visittability is very limited if it doesn't have certain adaptable features. Some of these are not costly and easy to incorporate. So hopefully, it will go beyond visittability. .
You know what? There's a question on line that I just want to answer.
That's all I had.
Are we taking questions or are we doing a third -- Oh. I thought we -- Sorry. I didn't realize we were -- [No audio]
Hi. My name is Mina hash rash. We couldn't upload the presentation, but I will be explaining the images as necessary, and it will be up by the afternoon or tomorrow. So before the conference finishes. So actually, I worked on this with -- from center for assistive technology. Georgia tech, and cat Lynn at -- again, it's college of architecture. And I will talk about livable communities and universal design. Next slide, please.
As we know, our aging population is evolving. And by 2030, almost one one ot of -- Americans will be 65 years old or older. And even now, about one in five older Americans reports having a chronic disability. Next, please. While we look at the statistics on people with disabilities, we see that the number there is also dropping. Next, please.
And even though according to the -- depending on the years Paz passed and the ability limitations, people still want to live at their homes where they have lived. Even though we build more accessible houses, recreational facilities, and our workplaces, people with disabilities are staying with home -- not all of them, but staying more at home and engaging in social activities less than people without disabilities. Next.
And we shouldn't wonder why. The aparens of building design and practices depends on prior use. Segregates people from each other and far away from each other. And even though they provide accessibility for structures such as sidewalks within a community, they may not be as accessible as we would desire them to be. And these conditions would not lead us to anywhere.
But there has been a paradigm shift to this. A -- active living coming from different disciplines. But smart growth from the organism as a movement from planning and urban design area, try to promote workable communities that would increase participation within the community. Active living movement as a public health movement actually promotes physical activity and healthier communities. They all suggest living, work, and play environments together for socially healthier communities. And when we look another the aging community, we see that they don't want to stay at home, but in addition, they want to live in senior-friendly communities. That they can access our health services and different employment opportunities that they would feel safe and engage in the activities and have eventually improved quality of life. Next, please.
And when we look at world health organization, we see that they adopted the model that would link activity and participation to features or physical environments. .
Have full access to the community. So when we look -- when we see all of these, we can think that there is an agreement, right, on bringing work and play environments together for better health and to promote community life. But we are not -- and we need to achieve these goals for all abilities and age levels. Next, please. And voila, universal design is there. And as we all may know, it is a designer product. An environment to be usable by all people to the greatest extent possible without the need for adaptation or specialized design. So universal design -- principals can integrate the competing ideas within them to create environments that could work towards life. And when we look at the principle based these communities, we see that they actually have the focal point or workability. As I mentioned, they bring compact -- that would bring diversity within the community for public spaces. For jobsites and housing types which would bring different aid groups together. They promote designs like interconnected streets and street lighting and landscaping. They also advocate for transportation opportunities for destinations out of the community. Next, please. .
And these statistics are important for people with disabilities and older population.
They need amenities within walking distance. -- where they have been living.
When we zoom in and look at the implementation, even though the communities'
principles are perfect, we see some problems. [Pause in captions to change captioners
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