An information session on Visitable Housing by Eleanor Smith,
Executive Director of Concrete Change “An international effort
to make all new homes Visitable”

Visitable Housing Seminar - pdf

The Beginnings of Concrete Change

In 1986 Eleanor Smith founded Concrete Change, an Atlanta, Georgia-based international network whose goal is "Visit-ability" in every new home. This goal is to end the isolation of disabled people and older adults who are presently limited by home construction practices from visiting friends and extended family. A second goal is to permit people who develop mobility impairments to live safely in their own homes rather than being forced by architecture to live in unsafe homes or be displaced from their own homes into nursing homes.

Ms. Smith has used a wheelchair since having polio at age three. After completing an M.A. in English, she worked for twenty-five years as a teacher and counselor, while also active in advocacy groups for disability inclusion.

In 1989, she became a full time worker for inclusion. She wrote and helped pass an Atlanta ordinance in 1992 which was the first law in the United States requiring a basic level of access in certain private, single family homes intended for the general public rather than for disabled people.

Since then she has helped advocates in many locales press for Visitability initiatives, both legislative and voluntary. She was a founding member in 1996 of the national umbrella group Disability Rights Action Coalition for Housing. Along with the Home Builders Association of Georgia and a several other groups, she was also a founder of EasyLiving Home, a voluntary home certification program. She received a Best Practices award for Visitability from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1999 and the 2004 Housing Champion Award from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.

More detailed information about the Visitability movement can be found at www.concretechange.org.