Disabled residents rate downtown buildings on accessibility

A group of Calgary residents with disabilities toured downtown Friday, scoring buildings on accessibility.

This comes as CBC News examined accessibility issues facing disabled Calgarians this week and found that housing and transportation remain among the top challenges.

The tour itself was organized by Disability Action Hall, a Calgary-area group that advocates for people with special needs.

'You want to celebrate the people that have buildings that are easy to get around in.' Thomas Poulsen

Thomas Poulsen, who has cerebral palsy and uses crutches to get around, was one of the people using scorecards to determine how accessible the buildings are for people who have disabilities.

"You want to celebrate the people that have buildings that are easy to get around in and that are easy for people to understand their way around," he said.

The group plans to award prizes for the winners next week during the disability pride walk on May 29.

Youth in seniors' homes

Many young Calgary residents with disabilities are ending up in seniors' complexes because they have nowhere else to go. The waiting list for an accessible apartment in Calgary has more than 170 people listed.

Mark Iantkow, who is blind andhas been an advocate for the disabled through Calgary's Accessible Housing Society, said many people with disabilities have no choice about where they end up living.

"We are ending up with a lot of people with physical disabilities ending up in inappropriate housing," he said. "Quite frankly a lot of them end up on the street."

Mark Tanguay, 31, waited three years for a wheelchair-friendly apartment before recently moving into a seniors' complex.

"It's OK, but you don't get that feeling of belonging," he said. "If I was given the choice I probably wouldn't be living there."

Barry Lindemann, who loves his wheelchair accessible apartment with on-call care, said it's the only building of its kind in this city but as a result no one moves out.

Review of accessible transit users

For Gerta McGregor, whose 24-year-old daughter Chrystal has severe spina bifida, the biggest frustration right now is transportation.

Access Calgary, which co-ordinates buses and taxis for people with disabilities, is evaluating all 17,000 of its clients.

Riders used to only need a doctor's note to get on board. McGregor said the 14-page form that she and her doctor need to fill out now is just too much.

"Type of treatment or therapy? By whom?," she said reading the form. "That's none of their business as far as I'm concerned."

McGregor said it's frustrating, especially since Chrystal's disability hasn't changed since birth.

"It's another thing that you have to attend to. It's not like you really have a life of your own," she said.

Karim Rayani, manager, said the review started whenAccess Calgarywasformedin 2001.

"There were all kinds of customers on the service that were really taking up the room and were costing the service more than it should," Rayani said.

Long waits for taxis

IfRoss MacDonald, who uses a wheelchair, wants to go somewhere he can book four days in advance with Access Calgary, but for last-minute trips he has no choice but to call a cab, with a waitof three to four hours, he said.

"It comes to a point sometime where you just say why bother going out because it's so frustrating," he said.

Even though city hall issued 100 new accessible taxi licences two years ago for specially equipped vehicles, one taxi driver estimates those cabs are only picking up the disabled about five per cent of the time they are on the road.

John Revitski said it's getting harder for taxi drivers to make money and they don't want to waste any time.

"People are basically lazy. They are going to take a person who can walk rather than have to spend 15 minutes tying down a wheelchair," he said.