Conference on "Improved Housing for the Handicapped" November 13, 1999
 

A resolution was taken in conclusion of  the special conference on "Improved Housing for the Handicapped" in Graz. People with a handicap, those looking after them and practical workers demand that anyone with a disability be allowed to live as they want to.

Beginning in 1991, the demand for a greater variety of housing options for the handicapped has been heard more and more. The subject of housing has formed a module in the work on the Styrian Scheme for the Handicapped.

And yet, there are still only singular housing facilities. The housing forms offered barely cover the demand and they offer only a very restricted elbowroom to meet the individual expectations and requirements of occupants.

In the course of the special conference, existing facilities were described, which despite their success mostly are no more than models. The subjects treated "Housing for people with an increased demand for being looked after - how we want to live: experience and exchange of thoughts with those concerned" and alternatives and new approaches resulted in the joint finding that there is a huge call for action, and therefore this resolution was passed by the special conference: 
 
 

Resolution

Anyone with a disability should be allowed to live as he/she wants to.
  • This right is to be embodied in the Disabled Act. 
  • A wide range of facilities, modelled on the demand, is to be set up. 
  • The disabled must be free to themselves choose among these facilities. There must also be privacy in the living area and quick, unbureaucratic help in emergency situations, and small housing units should be offered on a decentralized basis 
  • Anyone with a legitimate claim for aid funds should be allowed to use them as they please. 
  • To improve client-orientation, all offers and the pertinent (public) structures are to be evaluated and adapted to the changing requirements, again always calling in those concerned. 
First steps:
  • Separate working and housing 
  • Family relief service to be embodied in the law, as well as mobile housing care, housing assistance, and personal assistance. 
  • Extension and securing of full-time assisted housing, therapeutical housing communities. 
  • Support for the transition time from originating family to self-determined living. 
  • Possibility of follow-up care after moving out of the sheltered housing.  Drafting a concept on living forms for disabled old people and embodiment in the law required for it. 
The following is seen as an important precondition for development and necessary defusing of the difficult issue of housing:
 
  • The human image / basic attitude

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  • Availability of choices

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  • Legal changes. > separation of housing and working
  • Profession by the political decision-makers

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  • Emphasis on pressure groups (peers, mediators) 

This resolution is addressed to the political decision-makers in he Province, to Provincial Counsellor Dr. Anna Rieder and the representatives of the social committees of the Provincial Administration. It is expected that there is a committed feedback and that suitable steps for putting these requirements into realty be taken.