Human Rights, Disability, and Construction: How responsive are building regulations to changing community attitudes towards housing for people with a disability?

Abstract

Responsibility for housing people with a disability has rested with government and the charity-medical model of disability encouraged institutionalized accommodation. However, since the mid-2000s, the introduction of a person-centred approach has seen government's legislate programs that facilitate people with disabilities living in the community. This shifted supply of appropriate housing to the private-sector and placed a focus on whether current building regulations are capable of regulating in this space. This paper explores the history of building regulations in Australia, in parallel with the history of treatment of people with a disability. The normalization of institutionalizing peop..