It's a rite of passage many young Australians take for granted, but when Fathema Anwar told her parents she wanted to move out of home, they had plenty of reasons to think she wasn't serious.
Fathema Anwar's parents thought she was joking when she told them she was moving out of the family home.Housing options for people with a disability who want to live independently are growing but remain limited
"When we arrived in Australia when I was 13 we realised it already existed, so when we got wheelchairs it was like all our dreams came true."But a decade on, Fathema dreamed of something more — a place of her own in Sydney. Fathema Anwar's kitchen has been built with lower benchtops, appliances and switches that she can access from her wheelchair.
While all residents living in Fathema's block have disabilities, other buildings are occupied by both people with and without disabilities.The CEO of Disability Advocacy Network Australia, Mary Mallett, said she welcomed the expanded options."It's great to see developers building good-quality accessible housing, but on the other hand the developers are coming into the space for financial reasons," she said.
The women, both in their 20s, have recently moved into SDA apartments close to the city and say they no longer feel isolated. "I just want people to see us as a normal part of the community … like we hate when people come up and say 'well done' when we're just sitting in a cafe," she said.
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