Disability and Dignity-Enabling Home Environments

Disability and Dignity-Enabling Home Environments: Key Messages from an Ontario Study.

This study investigated the adequacy of home environments as enabling or disabling places for adults with significant mobility disabilities living in Ontario. The results suggest that provincial policies and practices continue to focus narrowly on the basic physical needs of disabled people. Minimal consideration is given to how home environment is implicated in broader notions of citizenship, rights, dignity and social inclusion. The report outlines a framework of seven conditions for assessing the adequacy of home environments using social dignity as a guiding principle. A peer reviewed paper is also published in Social Science and Medicine: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22142787.