What Good Is a Ramp If the Door’s Still Closed?

I’ve been in housing meetings where every buzzword is in the room—“inclusion,” “equity,” “access”—but no one’s asking the right questions. Questions like: Who actually gets to live here? And who keeps getting turned away, quietly, before they even apply?

When you support people with disabilities long enough—especially BIPOC folks—you start to recognize the patterns. I’ve watched people get passed over for units because their needs were considered “too complex.” I’ve seen forms that only offer yes/no answers to questions that need stories, nuance, and support. And I’ve watched more than one client take a unit that didn’t meet their accessibility needs just to avoid being homeless.

It’s not just about supply—it’s about design. It’s about culture. It’s about whether the people building housing are even thinking about disabled lives when they draw their blueprints or write their tenant agreements.

One family stays with me in particular: a Somali mother who was blind, trying to find housing near the rest of her family in a Minneapolis neighborhood she knew well. She’d applied to multiple places that checked the basic boxes—but none had truly accessible entrances. For months, she had to scoot down a flight of stairs each morning just to leave the building. Her support staff rotated constantly, and finding someone who spoke her language and understood her needs was rare. Too often, she was left alone all day without reliable assistance.

This wasn’t a lack of effort on her part. It wasn’t a lack of willingness to follow the rules or submit the forms. It was a system that assumed “accessible” was a matter of checklists, not lived experience.

Too often, the conversation around housing stops at compliance. ADA, check. Ramps, check. But accessibility is bigger than a doorway—it’s about how people get in, how they’re treated once they do, and whether or not they get to stay.

There’s been movement, sure. I’ve worked with coalitions trying to shift the way we think about supportive housing—less restrictive, more rooted in autonomy. I’ve seen a few developers start to ask better questions. I’ve seen funders put their weight behind community-led solutions, the kind that build with—not for—disabled residents. And I’ve seen housing staff who are eager to learn, who want to do it differently.

But there’s still a long way to go. Not because people don’t care, but because systems move slow, and the people harmed by that pace are often the ones who already wait the longest.

If we’re serious about justice, we need to understand that housing is a disability issue. A racial equity issue. A survival issue. And it’s not about doing more for “vulnerable populations.” It’s about building systems that don’t make people vulnerable in the first place.