Building a better way for people with a disability

AUSMAR Homes has hit the first milestone in its new series of houses designed for people with disabilities, with the completion of a frame.

AUSMAR Homes has hit the first milestone in its new series of houses designed for people with disabilities, with the completion of a frame for a demonstration house at Sippy Downs.

The display home will be scrutinised by people with disabilities today after builders invited community feedback before they take the project futher, Ausmar Homes estimator and supervisor Dave Schloss said.

"Before we go any further we want to get people with accessibility issues through the house to tell us if what we're doing ... will help them," he said.

The five-bedroom house would include four bedrooms equipped for people with special mobility needs and one bedroom for an optional carer, he said.

GOING UP: Ausmar Homes estimator and supervisor Dave Schloss is part of the team building disability-friendly homes at Sippy Downs. Picture: Warren Lynam

The demonstration home would have low benches and powerpoints, spring-loaded wardrobe rails that lowered to wheelchair height, and other features designed to make life easier for residents.

These and many other special features made the space practical, he said, but designers had also tried to make it feel like a home and not a hospital or nursing home.

"We don't want people with disabilities thinking they're living in a hospital," Mr Schloss said.

"We want them living in a home - a real home, but with features that make it easier for them."

Ausmar Homes' new business unit Ausmar Assist will deliver the accessible housing series for people of all ages and abilities.

Mr Schloss said the project had come about after numerous requests from people who had recently been injured and needed their homes retrofitted to suit a disability.

"Once you talk to various community groups, you find out the nursing homes are bursting at the seams," he said.

"It's not just older people at nursing homes, younger people with disabilities live in nursing homes."

He said there were many innovative features on the market that made it possible to design homes that would enhance people's lifestyles.

"Some of the things that are available now - like whole kitchens that lower to the ground - it's really exciting for me," he said.

"It opens up a whole new way of thinking."