Olmstead's Promise and Cohousing's Potential

Abstract

The Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., 527 U.S. 581 (1999), called for the deinstitutionalization and integration of people with disabilities in their communities. The Court clarified that Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act required that people with disabilities, whenever feasible and appropriate, no longer be shut away in nursing homes, state hospitals, and segregated schools to live as outcasts and pariahs. In the ten years since Olmstead, legal and social changes have been slow to happen. People with disabilities continue to live in state institutions and struggle for integration in their communities. The Community Choice Act and the Inclusive Home Design Act (or some version) are reintroduced each year with little fanfare and progress. News headlines are littered with stories about the abuse of people with disabilities in these facilities, including the most recent fight club stories from Texas.

While the Olmstead decision may have heralded the spirit of the ADA, it did not set forward a plan or series of ideas for integration. To be fair, expecting policy plans and community strategies from case law may be asking too much from the Court. The independent living movement within disability rights has much to offer to this problem, however, as does the cohousing movement of environmentalism. Cohousing is a participatory form of housing, where residents collaborate in the design and governance of their communities. These intentional communities can lead to neighborhoods where diversity is sought after and integrated into the plan, perceived limitations are offset by the collective’s talents, personal strengths are shared, and private home ownership is made more affordable for everyone. In addition to alleviating the environmental, economic, and community impacts of sprawl in today’s housing developments, the cohousing movement is dismantling people’s senses of psychological isolation. In this article, I will explore what the 'smart growth' and 'new urbanism' trends in the cohousing movement have to offer to the realization of Olmstead’s continuing promise of community integration. Cohousing may offer people with disabilities an attractive alternative to institutional life or alternative group homes by making the promise of affordable, autonomous home ownership possible. It also provides for a residential setting in which people can perform some of the tasks at which they excel (e.g., cleaning, cooking, shopping, babysitting) and trade off the tasks which they may not be able to do (e.g., driving, heavy-lifting, gardening, home repair) because of physical, mental, or economic limitations. Cohousing’s emphasis on equal, participatory citizenship within the community, and the intentional construction of shared living spaces and shared lives, may bring spatial and legal restructuring to the lives of people with disabilities.

Keywords: disability, housing, environment, affordable housing, LEED, green building, accessible housing, ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act, Olmstead, integration, cohousing, intentional communities