Not all housing is created equal, however, housing that meets the needs of wheelchair users is particularly hard to come by. That’s why British Columbia’s ‘The Right Fit’ program is so important. For people with mobility issues, it fills a vital gap. This unique program directly matches the needs of wheelchair users to accessible housing and supports them through the entire process. Over the last decade the program has placed over 371 people in stable, accessible housing. The program has also seen an increase in need, with a current waitlist of 226 wheelchair users. By all measures it’s a success, which makes it all the more baffling to see it loose federal funding as of April 2026.
What The Right Fit Actually Does
Finding appropriate housing is a challenge facing many Canadians. For wheelchair users, it is a fundamentally different and far more difficult process. Accessibility features are routinely absent from listing descriptions. Housing providers often lack the expertise to match the specific features of a unit to the specific needs of a prospective tenant. The result is a system in which people end up in housing that does not meet their needs, paying for costly renovations out of pocket, living with elevated risk of injury, and losing independence. In the worst cases, the result is homelessness.
The Right Fit exists to close that gap. The program conducts detailed accessibility audits of available housing units and carefully matches them to the needs of individual clients, a service that sounds deceptively simple but that addresses a systemic failure no other program in Canada is designed to fix. Once a client is matched with a suitable unit, the program can also provide financial and other supports to facilitate the moving process. There is currently no equivalent service anywhere else in the country providing this level of specialized, end-to-end support.
- 371 people placed in stable, accessible housing over 10 years
- 83% of clients reported improved housing accessibility after placement
- 95% client satisfaction rate
- 38% of clients were homeless or at risk of homelessness at time of placement
These numbers reflect lives changed in concrete, lasting ways. Among those helped: a nine-year-old Afghan refugee girl with Muscular Dystrophy; a 54-year-old man with a spinal cord injury who was living in a shelter after being struck by a hit-and-run driver. The 226 people currently on the waitlist are not abstractions, they are people navigating a housing system that was not designed with their needs in mind, waiting for a program that may no longer be there.
Research, Rights, and a Personal Connection
Current Balanced Supply of Housing research led by Drs. Alina McKay and Colin Phillips is exploring the housing experiences of persons with disabilities through the lens of the right to housing. People with disabilities living in Vancouver, Waterloo and Toronto were invited to participate in a survey in the summer of 2025. 45 people responded, including 12 people that owned their homes, 19 people that rented and 14 people living in non-market housing. There were wide-spread reports of discrimination by survey respondents. Alarmingly 89% of renters reported that they had experienced discrimination due to their disability when applying to housing. Survey respondents also reported that they faced barriers to making the changes they needed to their housing to meet their accessibility needs. Programs like the Right Fit ensure that wheelchair users have the support they need to find housing that meets their needs and remain housed.
For Dr. Phillips, the program is more than a research subject. As a wheelchair user himself, he was housed by The Right Fit. He now lives in a co-operative building that he considers his forever home, a place that meets his accessibility needs, that offers genuine community, and that he did not have to find, fight for, or modify alone. The outcome of stable, appropriate, community-rooted housing is exactly what the right to housing demands. It is also what this program makes possible for people who, without it, are unlikely to achieve it through the market or through generalist housing services.
“When I moved to Vancouver from Ontario, I did what most people with disabilities do; I moved into an apartment that just barely met my accessibility needs and that I could barely afford. Four years later, I have no doubt that I would have faced a significant crisis if The Right Fit hadn’t patiently worked with me to find housing that was accessible, affordable, and in a neighbourhood that I was familiar with.”
Dr. Colin Phillips, BSH researcher and Right Fit client
Canada’s Legal Commitment and What This Cut Signals
Canada’s National Housing Strategy Act (2019) commits the federal government to the progressive realization of the right to housing. This is not a symbolic statement. It places an obligation on government to move toward, not away from, the conditions that make housing rights real for all Canadians, including Canadians with disabilities.
According to the 2021 Canadian Housing Survey, people with disabilities are four times more likely to experience homelessness in their lifetime than people without disabilities. Homelessness is already growing across the country, and people with disabilities are disproportionately represented. Cutting The Right Fit moves Canada backward on its obligations, and it does so precisely when the National Housing Council has launched a Review Panel on the Lack of Accessible Housing in Canada. Until this month, British Columbia could point to The Right Fit as evidence that the progressive realization of the right to housing for persons with disabilities was underway. That evidence is now at risk of being lost.
The Hidden Costs of Getting This Wrong
The right to housing is not realized through supply alone. It is realized when housing is matched to the people who need it. Programs like The Right Fit need to be understood as essential infrastructure, not optional extras. We already know what works. Now we must act to preserve it.
