For nearly two decades, I have navigated the housing market from a wheelchair, and the reality is bleak. During the 15 years I was a renter, I never found a single accessible apartment in a building with fewer than six stories. This isn’t a coincidence; it’s a design failure dictated by Washington state’s outdated codes.
Current building codes mandate elevators that exceed size and cost constraints for most small-scale buildings. You might think that our rules about elevators would help wheelchair users, but they can inadvertently achieve the opposite: overkill in elevator code kills elevators. Small-scale homebuilders can’t make giant elevators work, so they opt for no elevator at all. And, fewer elevators means fewer accessible homes for someone like me.
State legislators have taken bold action in recent years to expand “middle housing,” opening doors to less expensive homes in small-scale multifamily buildings (2023’s House Bill 1110). In Seattle, where I live, we recently passed zoning changes to make stacked flats viable, a kind of building design that holds enormous potential for wheelchair-friendly, single-story floor plans. This is a win that I and other disability advocates fought for. But there’s a catch: Without elevators, these buildings can only offer accessible homes on the ground floor. We need so much more for Washington’s seniors, parents with disabilities, families with children who have disabilities, cost-burdened disabled renters and others navigating unsafe housing situations with limited mobility.
The math of accessibility is already stacked against us. When I was apartment-hunting, the only elevator-accessible choices were giant apartment complexes or high-rises — options that came with high rents. That’s a deal-breaker when you consider that people with disabilities are twice as likely to live in poverty. But every income bracket has a stake: 19% of U.S. households have a member with a mobility disability, yet nationwide, less than 5% of housing is accessible and less than 1% of that is wheelchair-accessible.
And Washington’s population is aging. With the number of state residents 65 and older nearly doubling from 1.25 million in 2020 to over 2.28 million by 2050, our need for accessible housing options becomes even more pressing.
I can report good news on that front: State legislators hold the keys to unlock more elevators and accessible homes in Washington, with a bill that would modernize the code to make elevators more feasible for smaller buildings and smaller homebuilders. Senate Bill 5156 would allow smaller, cost-effective elevators in buildings up to six stories and 24 units. This change opens the door for elevators that use up less space in a building, cost less and still accommodate a wheelchair, aligning the state’s elevator size rules with federal Americans with Disabilities Act standards.
The upshot: We’d get more elevators. More accessible homes. Washington communities would continue to lead the way on middle housing, without leaving people with disabilities and our families behind.
