New Year resolution number one: affordable and accessible housing

Let's work on affordable and accessible housing to keep and reintegrate people with disabilities into the community.

The goal: independent living

Read about how one Philadelphia man is working on that :

As executive director of the nonprofit Liberty Housing Development Corp., established in April 2007, he looks to create affordable, accessible housing within existing Philadelphia communities - from apartment buildings to neighborhoods.

With $2.2 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, $240,000 from the Philadelphia Office of Housing and Community Development, and $494,250 from the Philadelphia Housing Trust Fund, Liberty is creating 16 individual one-bedroom apartments in two communities: 11 at the Marine Club Condominiums in South Philadelphia and five at Valmont Towers in the city's Northeast.

Connus' passion for his job is personal: He has mobility and speech disabilities from cerebral palsy.

He noted during the interview that "there was a study in 2000 that 59,000 people need affordable accessible housing just in Philadelphia."

a huge and grateful h/t to Media dis&dat which now features a roundup of disability articles and topics - wonderful resource for all of us