Ottawa man using walker gets accessible entrance installed in his apartment building

Apartment accessibility issues An Ottawa man using a walker now has an accessible entrance in his apartment building after waiting months. CTV's Katelyn Wilson reports.

After waiting months for an automatic door button to be installed on the front door of his apartment building, an Ottawa man says it's finally happening.

"I feel the story is what made it happen, because you don't wait six months and all that," said David Humphries.

CTV News first aired his story nearly two weeks ago, after he showed us how difficult it was to get through the front door of his Minto apartment building.

Humphries has limited mobility and a little more than a year ago started using a walker.

"Almost once a week, I would start to lose my balance and get scared that I was going to crack my head open or hit my head on the door," he said.

He reached out to the building's owner to install an automatic door button in October. But he says he didn't hear anything until after we aired his story.

That's when he saw an e-mail saying it was all just a misunderstanding and the automatic button is now being installed.

"I think it was just a miscommunication, but a miscommunication that should have been fixed earlier," Humphries said.

In a statement, Minto tells CTV News, "It's happy to work with its tenants to arrive at a solution that meets their needs."

But advocates say Humphries' story is far from unique.

"It's much more that you would imagine," said Thony Jean-Baptiste, director of programs with Able2. "There are a lot of people facing this kind of barrier."

Despite legislation requiring multi-unit residential buildings to have fully accessible entrances by 2025, experts say that deadline may be hard to meet.

"It's one thing to have the policy, it's another thing to enforce the policy," Jean-Baptiste said. "If they don't have the money, the funding to do it, that can make it very difficult for them because it costs money to have accessible housing."

With a lack of accessible housing in Ottawa, Humphries says he's taking one thing away from the whole ordeal.

"It's something that needs to be looked at and brought to people's attention because life for someone with a disability can be very, very rough."