Seven years ago, while sitting in my eighth-floor apartment with my toddler, I heard a voice over the intercom: Our building had a gas leak, and we needed to evacuate. A few weeks prior, a coffee shop down the street had exploded from a gas leak, killing two people and injuring at least 25. Terror struck me: Our elevators were powered down—and I use a wheelchair. I was trapped, unable to take myself and my child to safety.The fire department quickly determined that it was a false alarm. Still, I didn’t stop shaking for hours. After a similar episode a few months later, my husband, David, and I bought a duffel bag the size of a human. We invited our neighbors over for pastries and asked if anyone would be willing to help carry me out during an emergency; my toddler could ride in the bag with me. A few neighbors agreed, but I couldn’t ignore that my survival—and that of my child—was contingent on who else might be at home, and who might remember our request and be able to reach me. Eight months later, we moved out. We vowed never to live in a high-rise again. Yet nothing could free me from the indignities of seeking housing while disabled.I’ve been disabled for 14 years, and in that time, I have resided in both the United States and Canada but have never lived somewhere safe where I can use all (or even most) of the rooms—an experience familiar to many disabled people who must find homes in a housing system that was not designed for them. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 6 percent of U.S. households include someone who has difficulty using their own home because of accessibility problems. I know people who cannot do things as basic as enter their own bathroom. Jessi, a wheelchair user, told me that for three years, while she was pursuing her Ph.D., she had to take sponge baths because she couldn’t find a house that had a shower she could get to from her wheelchair anywhere near the university. (Jessi and many of the other disabled people I spoke with for this article requested to be identified by only their first name to speak candidly about their living situation.)[From the September 2023 issue: The ones we sent away]Setups like this are not only alienating; they’re humiliating. And they’re a continuation of disabled people’s historical mistreatment and exclusion, a legacy that shapes housing to this day. I was reminded of the so-called ugly laws, which forbade disabled people from being seen outside their home, when a condo we considered buying included a “warning clause” in its contract advising us that a local school “provides education to students with physical and developmental disabilities” and “may cause disturbances to the occupants of the Condominium.” The official “ugly” statutes may have come off the books in the 1970s, but this condo building still felt the need to alert residents to the proximity of disabled people.And that’s just one way the history of discrimination influences current buildings and houses. Many older school buildings in the U.S. and Canada are not accessible to disabled students, in large part because disabled people were granted the right to education only in the mid-’70s. Most houses lack elevators and ramps, and for years, builders had little motivation to include them, because most disabled people were sent away to institutions rather than integrated into family life. Many of the most abusive and inhumane facilities for the disabled are now closed. But as long as disabled people like me can’t find suitable places to live, we won’t be able to fully participate in our communities and family. One disabled person I spoke with told me she has considered assisted living—even if it would mean being farther from friends—because she hasn’t been able to find a home with a setup that would let her live on her own. Making older homes accessible is hard. Renovators have to contend with stairs, unreliable elevators, narrow doorways, level changes, high thresholds, small bathrooms, tight kitchens, narrow hallways. Many of these homes need near-complete remodels, putting the cost out of reach for many people.Relying on collective support can ease the burden. Jayne Mattingly, an author and artist in Charleston, South Carolina, told me that her friends banded together to build wheelchair ramps for her. David Gissen, a disabled architectural historian and the author of The Architecture of Disability, told me that, in urban areas, neighbors can split costs for updates that benefit everyone; for example, residents in a group of brownstones might share an elevator.For renters, the thicket of housing laws is complicated and varies based on where they live. In some cases, tenants may be expected to foot the bill for modifications; in other circumstances, landlords may be required to pay—but the requirements can include loopholes for changes that create an “undue financial and administrative burden.” And, as I learned, the “undue burden” standard can be slippery and applied too liberally. I spent months trying (and failing) to persuade a property-management company to install buttons that would enable me to open the exterior doors of my apartment building. Over and over, other disabled people told me how frustrating it could be to have to fight to get their needs met. For Farah, a PR representative in Los Angeles with arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, a condition that, for her, affects muscle development in her limbs, the process was deeply intrusive. She told me that when she requested a shower-door replacement in her current apartment, her landlord came into the bathroom with her and asked Farah to explain how she gets in and out of the shower.[Read: ‘You have to scream out’]Even when landlords are open to making modifications or when disabled people can cobble together the funds to do so themselves, some updates can be difficult to implement, depending on local preservation requirements. Advocates for preserving historic structures argue that architectural authenticity links us to our heritage and that certain historically significant neighborhoods should not be altered. Some point out the role that buildings have in maintaining an area’s character.It is true that older structures can connect us to the past. But inaccessible architecture also perpetuates a history of isolation and excludes disabled people from both private and public spaces. I can’t count the number of times I haven’t been able to attend an appointment or event because I couldn’t get into a building.More painfully, I had to abandon my dream of building what would have been my first fully accessible home, after a neighbor started a monthslong campaign against the construction. He argued that the house, which would’ve been the first in the neighborhood that could accommodate a wheelchair, wouldn’t fit in. That neighbor hosted a meeting (upstairs, in a building without an elevator) where about 50 community members and a city councilor discussed how to stop the project. I later learned that, at the meeting, one person suggested that I didn’t need a wheelchair-accessible house, because I could simply be carried up the stairs, like other disabled people they knew.Looking back, I’m struck by the fact that those meeting attendees were inadvertently paving the way for their own eventual exclusion. Bodies and needs change over time, and accessible housing makes it easier for people to remain in their home as they age. Yet the inevitability of aging does little to make the housing system friendlier to the disabled or the elderly. As Wanda Katja Liebermann, a University of Oklahoma architectural historian and the author of Architecture’s Disability Problem, told me, people have a general “inability to imagine themselves as needing access.” I have certainly encountered people who find it frightening to imagine a future in which they can’t walk up the stairs, or in which any uneven surface might present a tripping hazard.But imagine what would happen if, rather than cementing society’s fear of disability, buildings were to make more room for frailty. Could it be that aging would become a bit less terrifying? At the least, accessible homes would let disabled people, the elderly, and the injured fully take part in their household’s daily routine. Their lives, and those of their family members, would be all the richer for it.Where my family lives now, I must spend most of my time in the primary bedroom. While in bed the other day, I heard the kind of body-on-wood thump that all parents recognize, followed by my 1-year-old crying. The baby was safe: David was comforting him. But it felt wrong on a primal level that I couldn’t be there too. I texted David, but his answer took time; he was focused on our child. “Bring him here,” I wrote. Finally, David carried our son upstairs, where I wrapped my arms around his soft body, his snotty face pressed into my sternum.I’ve experienced too many moments like these, trapped upstairs while my family laughs, argues, sings, or cries, just out of reach. In these moments, I ache not only for the memories I’m missing but also on behalf of my disabled ancestors—the many people who, like me, made their families better but, because of ignorance and fear, were hidden away.When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.