Legislation

This page provides resources on legislation relevant to visitable housing. The first section features the texts of major laws on housing that include some accessibility requirements (but accessibility is not the main focus of these laws). Resources in the second section include (1) texts of laws that have been passed or proposed to specifically require visitable housing features, and (2) information that can be used to understand and advocate for visitable housing legislation. 

Housing Legislation with Accessibility Requirements

  • Fair Housing Act, Hawaii Revised Statutes, Chapter 515, Discrimination in Real Property Transactions. This act of the Hawaii State Legislature mirrors the national Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988. Like the national act, the Hawaii act only requires that accessible features be provided in “multifamily housing accommodations” built with government funding supports for occupancy after March 13, 1991. There are no accessibility requirements for single-family detached homes, duplexes, triplexes, and multiple-story townhouses without elevators. (Word Doc, 10 pages, 30 Kilobytes)
  • Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988, 42 USC § 3601-3619, PL 100-430, 102 Stat. 1619. This act of the US Congress only requires that accessible features be provided in “multifamily housing accommodations” built with Federal funding supports for occupancy after March 13, 1991. There are no accessibility requirements for single-family detached homes, duplexes, triplexes, and multiple-story townhouses without elevators. (PDF, 36 pages, 350 Kilobytes)
  • Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act of 2010. This act of the US Congress has some requirements to ensure that supportive housing is accessible to residents with disabilities. (PDF, 11 pages, 150 Kilobytes)
  • Primer on Fair Housing Law (2014). This booklet outlines the broad contours of fair housing law. It is published by the Fair Housing Legal Support Center and Clinic of the John Marshall School of Law. (PDF, 32 pages, 2 Megabytes)

Visitable Housing Legislation

AARP

  • Expanding Implementation of Universal Design and Visitability Features in the Housing Stock (July 2017). This publication of the AARP Public Policy Institute was authored by Shannon Guzman, Janet Viveiros, and Emily Salomon. It explains universal housing design and visitability, and describes possible mandatory and voluntary legislative approaches for promoting such housing. (PDF, 6 pages, 1 Megabyte)
  • State Inclusive Home Design Advocacy Toolkit (2014). This publication of AARP in the States provides comprehensive guidance for advocating for visitable housing standards at the state level. Four model state ordinances are provided, but none are mandatory for ALL new housing. Instead, they are limited in scope (e.g., applying only to construction with Federal funding supports) and/or rely on taxpayer-funded incentives. (PDF, 136 pages, 14 Megabytes)

Austin, Texas

Bolingbrook, Illinois

  • Assuring Accessible Housing – Visitability Code of the Village of Bolingbrook (2008). This policy analysis by Katherine Fuller examines the pros and cons of mandatory visitability legislation, such as that of Bollingbrook, versus non-mandatory legislation that instead offers tax-payer funded incentives to builders and developers. (PDF, 17 pages, 360 Kilobytes)
  • Visitable Housing Code of Bolingbrook, Illinois (2004). This visitable housing code is often cited, along with that of Pima County, as strong evidence that mandatory requirements (1) come to be accepted by builders when they realize additional costs are minimal, (2) rapidly lead to an increase in the stock of visitable housing, and (3) enhance the marketability of homes. (PDF, 3 pages, 15 Kilobytes)
  • Visitability: The Way of the Future in Home Building (2004). This article in the Illinois Municipal Review, by Bolingbrook mayor Roger Claar and attorney James Boan, describes why the village received the Illinois Municipal League’s 2004 Innovations Award for its implementation of visitable housing standards. (PDF, 2 pages, 780 Kilobytes)

Hawaii State Legislature

During the half year before the Legislature’s 2018 session began in January, the Hawaii Visitable Housing Coalition worked with the Legislature’s Kupuna Caucus to develop two visitable housing bills. Kupuna is the Hawaiian word for elders. The Kupuna Caucus brings together Senators and Representatives who are committed to legislating on behalf of Hawaii’s elders. Our introduction of the concept of visitable housing appealed to them because such housing can support elders to age-in-place. The Kupuna Caucus therefore included these two bills (with a Senate and House version of each) in its 2018 legislative package. Hawaii’s leading newspaper, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, strongly supported the bills in an editorial that followed a front-page cover story about the many advantages of requiring new housing to be visitable. Even so, all the bills died after approval by several committees because they were not heard by the final hurdle, either the Senate Ways and Means Committee or the House Finance Committee. Links to the bills and the Star-Advertiser newspaper materials are provided below.

Honolulu City and County, Hawaii

Pima County and City of Tucson, Arizona

United States Congress

  • Eleanor Smith Inclusive Home Design Act of 2015 – NOT PASSED. This act is named after the founder of Concrete Change, the organization credited with launching the visitable housing movement. It was first proposed in 2003 by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D – IL) to require that all housing built with Federal funds have a no-step entrance, 32″ clearance doorways on the main level, and at least one wheelchair-accessible bathroom. Currently 95% percent of federally supported homes do not have to meet accessibility standards. (PDF, 9 pages, 260 Kilobytes)
  • Eleanor Smith Inclusive Home Design Act Will Make Homes Accessible (July 2016). In this Huffington Post blog post, Rep. Jan Schakowsky explains why she introduced the Eleanor Smith Inclusive Home Design Act, which would require all new homes built with Federal dollars to meet accessibility standards. (PDF, 2 pages, 560 Kilobytes)

Vermont State

  • Vermont Statutes 20 V.S.A. § 2907 Accessibility Standards; Residential Construction (2012). This statute (first passed in 2002) stands out as the only state law that mandates visitable features in ALL new home construction (not just homes built with government funding supports). However, it lacks two important features: (1) external accessible path of travel to a no-step entrance, and (2) a wheelchair-accessible bathroom on the entry level. In addition, the law has had relatively little impact due to its lack of enforcement mechanisms. (Word Doc, 1 page, 100 Kilobytes)