The Future of Home Inclusive Housing Solutions Lab

There is a shortage of affordable, accessible and inclusive housing options for people with developmental disabilities and their families. Many solutions separate people with developmental disabilities from the community, grouping them together in institutional living arrangements. This approach only perpetuates their exclusion and marginalization.

The Future of Home Inclusive Housing Solutions Lab will design inclusive, supportive housing for people with developmental disabilities and their families. The Lab will work with participants to design 2 affordable and accessible housing support models. These innovative housing solutions will support people with developmental disabilities and their families and help include them in the community.

Project scope and expected outcomes

Successful social inclusion

There is a tendency to create specialized housing for people with developmental disabilities that separates them from the community. Even when people with developmental disabilities live within the community, their inclusion is seldom supported or planned. This creates barriers to forming positive relationships between people with development disabilities and other community members. Successful social inclusion must be intentionally implemented and supported through the shared work of different stakeholder groups.

A social innovation approach

The Lab will attempt to address current gaps in housing for people with developmental disabilities through a social innovation approach. The Lab will take place over 5 phases.

1. The Definition Phase will develop the work plan, conduct pre-lab research and recruit the stewardship and core teams.
2. The Discovery Phase involves several workshops to develop personas, choose research methods and identify and share key lessons learned. They will also identify gaps in knowledge and plan additional research, if it is needed. This will help the Lab understand the needs of both people with development disabilities and stakeholders.
3. The Development Phase will feature another workshop to explore and collaboratively develop potential solutions and models. This will create ideas for prototypes that reflect the needs and wants of end-users.
4. The Prototype and Test Phase will consist of creating posters that outline key features of the prototypes. Prototypes will be shared and tested with key stakeholders through a multi-stepprocessto gather feedback and improve the original design idea .
5. The Roadmap Phase will see up to two promising models prototyped and developed into business cases. Visual representations of the models will be created that describe their key features.

Sharing the Lab’s innovations

A series of reports and other material will help share the Lab’s innovations. Community and research reports will summarize the approach and process of the Lab and its key features. Detailed business plans will be created for each model, and a short video documentary about the Lab will be produced. These materials will be shared widely through partner networks and social media, in presentations and on partner websites.