Some students and faculty who use wheelchairs have decided not to live on campus due to limited wheelchair accessibility at on-campus living sites like Residence Commons and Parkside Commons.
Richard Beaver, a freshman psychology major living at Residence Commons, uses a wheelchair but can still walk. Beaver was born with a congenital birth defect called proximal femoral disease. He is able to walk for five to 10 minutes before getting tired. Still, he said he can see how students who are confined to a wheelchair might have difficulties on campus.
“I can walk, so accessibility for me is different than someone permanently bound,” Beaver said. “I work out three to five times a week but I can see how it might be difficult for someone who is in a wheelchair, that is not as fit, to live here.”
The Residence buildings have steep hills, few elevators and minimal ramps.
“Honestly, the ramps and those hills for me personally are not strenuous,” Beaver said. “When I have to take out a boxed meal from the dinning hall, I might drop it going up the hill, but really I don’t know why there aren’t more accessible areas still.”
According to Carol Roberts-Corb, director of housing and residence life at Cal State Long Beach, the most recent on-campus buildings were constructed about 30 years ago and all of the sites meet the Legal Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines for buildings of the time.
“We try to work close with DSS, making sure we are legally up to code, and if we are ethically doing what we can to meet all students needs,” Roberts-Corb said.
David Sanfilippo, director of disabled student services, said housing may not be completely aware of the situation for disabled students and faculty.
“It’s a problem,” Sanfilippo said. “It would be nice to have a switchback by the grass areas, but here is the problem: For every inch of height, you have to have 12 inches of length. So for that particular gradation, there is probably four feet, meaning 48 feet of ramp.”
Before housing can begin construction on the dorms, it considers three aspects: Whether the buildings legally meet requirements, what the ethical needs are and its costs, according to Roberts-Corb.
“We haven’t had any students say they need a different level of accessibility … but I wouldn’t recommend for them to live in residence because of the hills,” Roberts-Corb said.
Sanfilippo disagreed and said housing should do more.
“It doesn’t matter the amount of students that complain, it’s the issue,” Sanfilippo said.
Parkside Commons also falls short in wheelchair accessibility, not for students, but for faculty.
Every professor who is hired at CSULB is eligible for faculty housing, but because there are limited spots, there is a competitive application process for when there is an opening.
Approximately three years have passed since wheelchair-user assistant professor of journalism Danny Paskin was chosen as a candidate for an exclusive spot in faculty housing in Parkside.
Although he was not selected as the final candidate for the on-campus faculty spot at the time, Paskin recollected there being a lack of wheelchair access to faculty housing in Parkside.
“I did not expect that they would look at me and say, “By the way, the faculty apartments are not accessible because they are on the second floor with no elevators at all,'” Paskin said. “I did understand that, by California law, they weren’t required to have accessibility to a second floor apartment because the building predates a lot of the regulations. It was just kind of interesting that a state university doesn’t have accommodation for a faculty member that is disabled to live at.”
Paskin said he was offered a “Plan B,” but it was different than what was offered to non-disabled professors. Eventually, Paskin was not selected to live on campus.
Roberts-Corb confirmed that nothing has changed regarding wheelchair accessibility in faculty living in Parkside since three years ago.
Roberts-Corb said, “We have accessible faculty housing in the Residential Learning College, but currently at Parkside, no.”
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