On the Brink: Halifax wheelchair user feels ‘trapped’ due to housing crunch
This is the second instalment of a Global News series called ‘On The Brink,’ which profiles people who are struggling with the rising cost of living. In this story, two Halifax women talk about the challenges of finding an accessible place to live amid the worst housing crunch the province has seen in decades.
April Hubbard knows what it’s like to be on the brink.
A wheelchair user with a degenerative condition, Hubbard hasn’t left her 10th-floor Halifax apartment since March.
“My entire world is these four walls, and they feel smaller and smaller each day,” she said.
Hubbard, 38, has lived in her apartment building for five years. When she moved in, she had been looking for a home for six months and it was the only “semi-accessible” apartment she could find at an affordable price range.
But she said there have been a “lot of issues” with the building’s accessibility. There are only two elevators for the 22-storey building, which are prone to breaking down.
She also said she and her former roommate had to “fight” with building management to get accessibility changes made to the bathroom, such as changing the door to open outward instead of inward.
“That took six months of fighting, and (the roommate was) living in the building and going down to another floor to shower on a different floor for months because they wouldn’t make changes to our apartment,” she said.
Hubbard said she also has difficulty getting in and out of the building’s front door, which does not have a ramp. She also has had to deal with issues like flood damage and mould.
Even when she first moved in, she knew that this living situation wasn’t sustainable. So she began looking for a new accessible apartment in 2018 — and she’s been looking ever since.
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