A Scoping Review on the Influence of Housing on Is Identifying priorities and developing collaborative action plans to improve accessible housing practice, policy, and research in Canada

Sander L. Hitzig, Kirstin E. Yuzwa , Linda Weichel, Eva Cohen, Luke Anderson, Peter Athanasopoulos, Krista L. Best, Marco Chow, Anita Kaiser, Franca Tomasella, Sara J. T. Guilcher, Vanessa K. Noonan, Richard Joy, Anika Abdullah, Farah Bacchus-Misir, Amy Chan, Marnie Courage, Nikoletta Erdelyi, Deborah Fletcher, Siobhan Galeazzi-Stirling, Gary Gladstone, Jenn Green, Monte Hardy, Evelyn Harris, Jeffrey Kerr, Judi Lytle, Kyla MacGinnis, Gary Malkowski, David Rosenbaum, Julie Sawchuk, Mikiko Terashima, Yu-Ling Yin, Sue VanDeVelde-Coke, Christine L. Sheppard 

DOI: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0318458

Abstract

This article describes the development of priorities and actions to improve the state of research, policy, and practice related to accessible housing in Canada for persons with disability or with accessible housing needs. A modified Delphi approach with an expert cross-sectoral panel was used to gain convergence on a set of priorities for advancing the accessible housing field in Canada. This included circulating an anonymous pre-meeting survey (N = 49) followed by an in-person planning meeting (N = 45). The expert panel at the in-person meeting identified three clusters of priorities from an initial list of 21 priorities, which included: 1) engaging with all levels of government to support accessible housing efforts; 2) developing educational resources to raise awareness about accessible housing, and creating services to facilitate locating and acquiring accessible housing; and 3) fostering meaningful engagement across key interest groups and sectors to find solutions to enact positive change in this space. The findings provide an initial roadmap for bringing greater cohesion to the accessible housing field, which will enable cross-sectoral partnerships and collective action towards informing the next generation of accessible housing standards, regulations and practices for people with accessible housing needs.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr Christiana L. Cheng for her scientific advice, critical review, and proofreading of the manuscript. We also thank the RHSCIR participants and network, including all the participating local RHSCIR sites: GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre, Vancouver General Hospital, Foothills Hospital, Glenrose We would like to thank Lorene Casiez from Human Space / BDP Quadrangle, Sarah McCarthy from the Rick Hansen Foundation, Brock Stevenson from the Daniels Corporation, Sean MacGinnis from BuildAble, and Rabia Munir from GWL Realty Advisors for their contributions to this initiative. The authors also would like to thank our staff and students from the St. John’s Rehab Research Program for their support, including Yomna Ahmed, Jorge Rios, Zoe Li, and Sarmitha Sivakumaran. Finally we would like to thank Jerry E. Mings from the Desk Consulting Group for his facilitation of the planning event.

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