For those in the disability community, it has always taken a village. When your life is filled with doctor’s appointments, chronic illness symptoms, and navigating a world that isn’t built for accessibility, being surrounded by reliable family, friends, and peers doesn’t just enrich the day-to-day — it makes the day-to-day possible.
Yet, the lack of affordable housing and rent in the U.S. is throwing this critical ecosystem out of balance. As home prices climb and renters contend with skyrocketing leases and utilities, disabled people often have no choice but to leave the communities they’ve built because they’ve been priced out.
Disabled Black women — like myself — are more likely to struggle to pay our rent than our white counterparts. That means we shoulder the compounding emotional and financial stress of affording where we live while also managing the costs of doctors’ visits, medications, and mobility aids. All of these factors make it harder to find quality, affordable places to live.
That’s where the community around us comes in. Neighbors and peer networks have long filled the gaps left by underinvestment in social programs and safety nets through everyday acts of care. Neighbors exchange rides, share childcare responsibilities, check in on elders and support one another in ways that make daily life possible.
For many disabled people, these relationships also make our communities more accessible to us, empowering us to navigate and participate in everyday life with greater dignity, autonomy, and connection. But as housing costs continue to rise and people are displaced, these informal systems of care become harder to sustain. When affordability forces people farther from family, neighbors, and community, it weakens the very relationships that help everyone survive and thrive.
As a Black, disabled woman renting in the metro Atlanta area, I’ve felt the direct impact of policies that prioritize corporate profits over tenants’ livelihoods. Every month, I receive worryingly expensive utility bills from the private water and sewage corporation that contracts with my apartment complex. And every month, as I watch the amount grow for no discernible reason, I wonder if I’ll be able to make my base rent.
