When Barrier Free Living began its work in New York in the early 1980s, the city was experiencing a surge of homelessness among people with physical disabilities.
The newly launched non-profit bought a Lower East Side old school house for $1 and established transitional housing that provided critical shelter for clients who needed around the clock care. But staff soon realized there was an overlapping community with similarly underserved and urgent needs: domestic violence survivors with disabilities.
A new mission for the organization emerged. Over the next four decades, Barrier Free Living developed its own groundbreaking crisis intervention services and expanded outreach through its mental health clinic. Its staff trained hundreds of police officers, lawyers, and health officials at agencies across the city to better support survivors of domestic violence with disabilities. And, after steadily fighting for state funding for more than a dozen years, it opened Freedom House, the first totally accessible domestic violence shelter in the nation.
Since 2006, Freedom House has provided a safe space for thousands of women, men, and gender non-conforming people with disabilities from across New York City and as far away as Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Ghana. Clients have included those living with paralysis sustained through trauma, congenital conditions, and, in some cases, through the domestic abuse itself; children with disabilities have also sometimes accompanied parents leaving a violent relationship
While some emergency shelters offer limited accessibility, Freedom House was designed to fully meet the needs of all clients.
“It’s not just ramps,” says Cynthia Amodeo, chief executive officer of Barrier Free Living. “Every detail has been thought about.”
At Freedom House, wheelchairs easily fit in the double wide hallways. Doors and cabinets are opened with push buttons and levered handles. Units can be made bigger to fit medical equipment. Bathrooms offer roll-in showers and accessible sinks. Light switches, counters, and microwaves are installed at lower heights. An adjustable dining room table in the communal kitchen welcomes a wheelchair user. And meetings with staff, including counselors, take place not in hallways, but offices where furniture is arranged to accommodate wheelchair users.