Landlords refusing to rent to disabled persons

Some landlords are reportedly refusing to rent their properties to persons with disabilities, even though there is evidence those individuals are able to pay.

The charge was levelled by the President of the Barbados Council for the Disabled (BCD) Kerryann Ifill who told Barbados TODAY that many people with disabilities regularly face discrimination when attempting to secure accommodation.

She said that in addition to being turned away by landlords, disabled persons had difficulty purchasing homes because of limited access to private funding.

“The reality is that many of us who live with disabilities are barred from owning our own homes or even renting spaces,” Ifill said.

She noted that in some cases, property owners specifically stated they would not be renting to individuals who are blind, while others were reluctant to make renovations to their properties for the mobility challenged.

The BCD president said prospective landlords seemed to believe that disabled persons were incapable of paying rent.

“I recently heard of a situation where two persons were going to rent a house. Actually, the able-bodied person was going forward to rent the house and when the landlord learned that the package included a family member with a disability, he said he don’t want them in his house. That didn’t happen in 2002, 1972, or 1902; that happened in 2022,” she said.

Ifill, who is also Deputy Chairman of the newly formed National Advisory Committee on Persons with Disabilities, said housing solutions for the vulnerable group is one of the pressing issues set to be reviewed by the committee which was set up to guide the establishment of a commission for improving the lives of persons with disabilities.

“When these persons don’t get through with renting one property they have to keep hunting, to be honest. And if the hunting has no successful outcome, they have to stay where they are until they find an alternative. Many persons with disabilities are on the National Housing Corporation’s (NHC) waiting list. And while NHC doesn’t discriminate, the wait is a long one. So, these persons are left hunting,” Ifill said.

Chairman of the Advisory Committee, Edmund Hinkson said it was no secret that persons with disabilities face discrimination on several fronts.

Pointing to one such scenario, he said that while Barbados has implemented free education in its legislative regime, some parents of disabled children have to foot the bill for special education.

“Fortunately, some of the locally-based trusts like the Sandy Lane Charitable Trust fund some of this education, but in a lot of cases, the reality is that you have to pay for special needs education, and that can’t be right,” Hinkson said.

He also indicated that the unemployment rate among people with disabilities is high. According to Hinkson, the 2010 national census showed that about 90 per cent of adults with disabilities in Barbados were jobless. anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb