Planning accessible housing for people with environmental illness: Lessons from three affordable housing projects
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This paper explores how to create accessible environments for people with environmental illness, focusing on affordable housing. People with environmental illness can experience severe and often disabling health problems when exposed to even small amounts of everyday chemicals, such as fragrances and pesticides. These reactions can include migraines, asthma attacks, dizziness, seizures, musculoskeletal pain, and anaphylaxis. Recognized as a disability in Canada and many other countries, and accommodated on a case-by-case basis in the United States, environmental illness creates various urban accessibility barriers, one of the most frequently cited being access to healthy housing. Despite this, the condition has been largely overlooked in urban planning and policy scholarship. This paper addresses this gap by analyzing three affordable housing projects designed for people with environmental illness in Canada and the United States: Barrhaven Community Housing for the Environmentally Hypersensitive in Ottawa, Ontario; Ecology House in San Rafael, California; and Old Concho Community Housing in Snowflake, Arizona. From these case studies, the paper derives 10 lessons for creating affordable and accessible housing for people with environmental illness. Finally, it discusses how urban planning and policy can improve urban accessibility for people with environmental illness and related disabilities.
Source: Journal of Urban Affairs
Author: Justin D. Stern
Institution: National University of Singapore
Language: English
Subfield: Safety Research
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funders: Yale University, Yale-NUS College
OpenAlex ID: W7203760213