Micaela Connery

Micaela Connery is advancing disability-forward housing solutions that open doors to more affordable homes and opportunities for everyone. Uniquely positioned as both a housing developer and advocate, she is meeting immediate housing needs, moving an entire field forward, and proving that accessible, affordable, and inclusive housing is attainable.

Micaela has created a housing model that is not just affordable, accessible, and integrated for people with disabilities but also builds community and improves the housing experience for all residents. Millions of people living in the United States are feeling the effects of one of the worst affordable housing crises in a generation. But for the 70 million people with disabilities in the US, finding and retaining housing they can afford–and feasibly live in–is even more challenging. Only 6% of the national housing supply meets the basic standards of accessibility, which are themselves inadequate for the needs of many disabled people. This persists despite most accessibility features being cost-neutral when a building is constructed, only becoming more costly when retrofitting is required. The housing shortage forces disabled people into housing insecurity, segregated settings, or living in places that don’t meet their needs.

Micaela has designed an alternative: affordable housing that integrates people with and without disabilities into the community, actively works to build a sense of belonging, and respects the agency and self-determination of all residents. For those with disabilities, who are too often asked to sacrifice independence in order to have necessary support or forgo support in order to maintain independence, this model represents a radical change. By centering the needs and voices of disabled people, this model, which has been coined “disability-forward housing,” is challenging subpar standards in the field of affordable housing development overall, as well as decades of segregated living for this population. She is proving that accessible, affordable, inclusive housing is not just a human right, but financially feasible and ultimately better for everyone–regardless of disability status.

In 2017, Micaela co-founded The Kelsey with her cousin, Kelsey Flynn O’Connor, who had significant disabilities and had limited-to-nonexistent housing options that included her or met her needs. Since its founding, the nonprofit has been co-led by people with and without disabilities. (This shouldn’t make them innovative, but it does.) The Kelsey takes a cross-disability approach to their work; their model includes intellectual and developmental, physical, mental health, chronic illness, and sensory access needs, and more. Their work is grounded in best practices for universal design – i.e. the “curb cut effect”, the concept that disability-friendly features can be used and appreciated by a larger group than for whom they were originally intended. In addition, the team listens to the needs and desires of people with disabilities whose voices are so often left out of the conversation. Micaela found that many people with disabilities want housing that is separate from the supportive services they may need in order to live independently. This is because most of the housing options that provide care services “in-house” tend to be segregated from the broader community and often have restrictive, paternalistic policies for residents, such as strict bedtimes, mealtimes, and rules about socializing. Still, they wanted housing that was responsive to their needs and allowed them to easily coordinate care with external providers as needed. They also wanted to live in a vibrant community of people with and without disabilities.

Each of The Kelsey’s communities is unique to the local needs of residents, but all are: affordable to people at the very lowest and moderate-income level; accessible for people with a range of disabilities and access needs; and inclusive, leveraging staffing, leasing, and amenity spaces to support thriving, connected communities. 25% of the units are reserved for people with disabilities at the lowest incomes who rely on supportive services, and the remaining 75% are available for anyone with and without disabilities across a range of incomes. The housing is designed according to the principles laid out in their Inclusive Design Standards, a comprehensive model The Kelsey developed in partnership with Erick Mikiten Architecture and a council comprised of disability and housing advocates, architects, developers, and planners. Their model extends far beyond the minimum legal requirements for accessibility and creates an actionable blueprint of disability-forward design. In addition to its use at The Kelsey, Micaela and her team promote this open-source model to other advocates and housing developers, who are using it as an example of best practices. The Kelsey communities in San Jose, San Francisco, and Birmingham act as demonstration sites for disability-forward housing that The Kelsey is working to make the new normal through policy and field change.

Each property co-developed by The Kelsey is staffed by the new role of an “Inclusion Concierge,” whose responsibilities involve building community in addition to meeting the needs of residents with and without disabilities. They link up on an opt-in basis with a resident’s service providers to ensure smooth care delivery and offer support in case of emergency or when a new service arrangement needs to be worked out. They also work with all interested residents, both with and without disabilities, to hold events that encourage people to get to know one another and build informal systems of support—neighbors finding their common ground and new ways to support each other outside of the care provider/care recipient paradigm.

Solutions to housing for people with disabilities require both direct housing development and access coupled with systems and policy change to address the issue at its root and at scale. The Kelsey is the only organization explicitly focused on models for disability inclusive housing. By being both a housing developer and advocate, The Kelsey can meet immediate housing needs, demonstrate what works, expand their impact to serve more communities, and move an entire field forward.

Micaela and her team are co-developing these multi-family apartment buildings with local housing developers and other partners, so they can stay nimble and focus on spreading their system through replication, rather than getting bogged down on individual construction projects. Already highly regarded as best-in-class subject matter experts, they are training advocates in the disability space and in the housing space to bridge the two fields and show how collaboration will improve outcomes. They have built a detailed playbook for what this type of housing looks like and have made all of their work open source so that other organizations, cities, architects, etc. can pick it up and run with it. For example, the innovation exists not just in the model of integrated housing itself, but also in the financing mechanism – leveraging both housing subsidies and some philanthropy in their funding stack to guarantee that crucial aspects of the integration model (like the Inclusion Concierge and accessible spaces for community-building) remain non-negotiable. The Kelsey also advocates for public policy and regulatory changes to increase funding for disability-forward, inclusive housing and to ensure higher standards for accessibility and inclusivity in new affordable housing developments. Already, the city of San Jose, CA, and Washington, DC have incentivized The Kelsey’s design standards as a plus point in all new affordable housing developments. To date, the team has provided technical assistance to over 19 projects across 9 states that are implementing the Inclusive Design Standards in new affordable housing construction.

People with disabilities experience the highest rates of housing insecurity, housing discrimination, and homelessness. Those who rely on Social Security benefits would need to spend, on average, 125% of their income to afford basic housing. In high cost-of-living areas like the Bay Area in California, that jumps up to more than 300% percent. Only 16% of eligible low-income people with disabilities are receiving housing assistance. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines disability as “an impairment that substantially limits a major life activity” whether directly or as a result of other people’s perceptions and barriers. Even though 26% of people have disabilities, less than 6% of the national housing supply is designed to be accessible at a basic (and thus inadequate for many people with disabilities) level. Six million adults with disabilities live with a parent or sibling, and more than half of these households are headed by aging caregivers over the age of 55. Due to the severe lack of options, many families don’t have long-term plans in place.

In 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that requiring people with disabilities to live in segregated housing in order to access services is a violation of the ADA and constitutes discrimination. The Olmstead Act is one of the most important civil rights decisions for people with disabilities in the US, as it affirmed the right of people with disabilities to live independently, receiving the care they need in the community of their choice, rather than in segregated, institutionalized, and invisible settings. Since Olmstead was passed, the number of disabled people living in large group congregate settings has decreased substantially, but there has only been a minor increase in community housing options, which means people with disabilities are often forced to accept the restrictions of group homes or institutional care settings because they have nowhere else to go. Instead, larger numbers of disabled people are living in their family homes well into adulthood and with aging caregivers. Meanwhile, group homes or otherwise segregated, institutional settings often place limits on residents like bedtimes, restricted social opportunities, and rules about what and when they’re allowed to eat.

The persistent gap between housing developers and accessible housing advocates exists in part because there are so few social innovators working at this intersection. Affordable housing advocates are often unfamiliar with the needs of people with disabilities and do not go beyond the minimum legal requirements for accessibility. Disability rights advocates often lack the expertise to navigate the complicated processes of housing development required to address this problem. Many disability organizations are led by self-advocates, which sometimes leave out those with high support needs from the conversation. Other players in the field include disability-serving organizations that are run by family members of people with disabilities and often lack disabled leaders. Some of these organizations have tried to address the housing shortage by building segregated housing developments, which are often privately owned, unaffordable, and do not operate at scale.

A scalable approach to affordable, accessible, inclusive housing for people with disabilities requires policy advocacy at all levels of government to push not only for more resources but for a more expansive idea of what housing can look like and provide for all residents – that incorporates both self-advocate-led organizations and parent-led organizations and that balances independence and community.

The Kelsey’s strategy consists of two core avenues of work: first, designing and refining a best-in-class model of disability-forward housing based on the learnings and shortcomings of decades of housing approaches; and second, ensuring that this becomes the new normal through policy advocacy, coalition building, open-sourcing their learnings, training developers and advocates in the best practices of their model, and supporting a network of developers interested in replication.

Micaela started this work with extensive research into current and past housing models and housing needs. Crucially, she listened deeply to people with disabilities to develop a clear sense of what they want and need. From this background, she designed the key pillars of The Kelsey’s model: affordability, accessibility, and inclusion.

The Kelsey housing developments are integrated, with people with and without disabilities living together. While 25% of housing units at The Kelsey’s developments are reserved for people with disabilities, 75% percent are available to anyone who meets the income requirements. Services for residents who rely on in-home services and support to live independently are not provided directly through The Kelsey, which allows residents to make choices about their housing and their other supports separately and avoids the pitfalls of restrictiveness and isolation that often arise when housing is coupled directly with services. On an opt-in basis, all residents can participate in the offerings of an Inclusion Concierge, a model that was piloted by The Kelsey in existing housing developments. The Inclusion Concierge staff are on-site members of The Kelsey team who focus on resident experience and community building. Residents with disabilities who rely on supportive services can have an Inclusion Concierge link up with their providers to coordinate services and support in the case of an emergency. If a resident needs to change some aspect of their health services, an Inclusion Concierge can be a resource with a curated list of providers in the area. The Inclusion Concierge also sets up a wide range of community events for residents with and without disabilities and can help make connections between residents (dog sitting, recommendations for schools, carpooling, etc.). The Inclusion Concierge staff also assists residents in building Circles of Support, networks of formal and informal care that facilitate independent living. Apart from bolstering the health outcomes of residents with disabilities who live at The Kelsey, the Inclusion Concierge helps residents with and without disabilities feel part of a larger community.

In terms of physical design, The Kelsey is considered best-in-class for accessibility and inclusion. In addition to common sense accessibility features like elevators and ramps, daylight levels, and thermal controls, each building has design features focused on supporting community, such as public indoor and outdoor gathering spaces that encourage residents to interact, hallways that are designed to encourage gathering, etc. A portion of the units for disabled residents have two bedrooms, enabling caregivers to live in when appropriate. The buildings are centrally located, close to public transportation and health services.

The Kelsey’s housing developments are co-developed with other developers who are locally focused. Much of the money used to finance these projects comes from government subsidies such as federal Section 811 dollars (which support the construction of accessible, affordable housing by nonprofit housing developers). The Kelsey, however, deliberately brings in philanthropic money, which secures their input throughout the development process and allows them to ensure the project remains in adherence to the Inclusive Design Standards.

The Kelsey’s inaugural building opened in April 2024 in San Jose, CA. Their second building in San Francisco is slated to be operational by year-end. Additionally, The Kelsey is partnering with local stakeholders in Birmingham, Alabama to develop a disability-forward housing community. Having secured the land and completed the community engagement process, they are currently in the design phase of this project.

Micaela and her team have designed The Kelsey with scale in mind. They have no illusions that they will build the volume of affordable housing needed to solve this problem alone. Instead, they scale through collaboration with and replication by other organizations. The Kelsey is providing deep technical assistance to a portfolio of 19 projects across 9 different states (rural and urban). They currently co-own their developments in California and Alabama, but do not believe it will be strategic to remain in the ownership structures long-term, instead serving as a financing partner for later developments to ensure they keep their seat at the table.

While code sets the baseline for what’s required, before The Kelsey, no holistic guidelines defined an implementable, progressive approach to creating truly affordable, accessible, and inclusive housing. The Inclusive Design Standards aim to equip designers, builders, and developers with guidelines and frameworks for disability-forward housing creation. Development teams can use the open-source standards to plan and design their projects, then self-certify their communities on their level of affordability, access, and inclusion. The Inclusive Design Standards consist of over 300 Elements, which reflect design and operations choices and include development strategies, building features, and operational policies that support disability-forward communities. Elements range from specific physical features to resident services, design team makeup to building amenities, leasing strategies to materials selection, and beyond. The majority of the physical design accessibility improvements they recommend are cost-neutral when designing new buildings. The Kelsey’s expertise as a developer and advocate enables them to hold affordable housing design to a much-improved standard for accessibility and inclusion, but doing so in a way that is realistic enough to be implementable.

The Kelsey’s partners include affordable housing developers and advocates in both the disability rights and housing access spaces, who they support by developing resources, tools, and standards for best practices in designing inclusive, affordable, and accessible housing. There have traditionally been silos separating housing and disability, and mistrust separating parent-led disability organizations from self-advocate-led disability organizations. The Kelsey brings all these stakeholders together into an aligned coalition, emphasizing the importance of listening to and placing at the forefront the voices of people with disabilities. In Birmingham, one of the most segregated cities in America, the design process from day one engaged local governments, the development community, the disability community, and the housing authority.

Growing beyond what they themselves can build or support, The Kelsey also convenes the Inclusive Houser Network, a group of (currently) sixteen organizations developing or operating disability-forward housing across the US, to share best practices, advocate for disability-forward policy, and grow the number of advocates in this space. Their current policy priorities include expanding Section 811 housing, a US Department of Housing and Urban Development program designed to support the building and renting of accessible housing for people with disabilities, and increasing other tax incentives and funding allotments for home- and community-based services that can be applied to housing. Already, the city of San Jose and Washington, DC have incentivized The Kelsey’s Inclusive Design Standards as a plus point for new affordable housing construction. The San Antonio Housing Trust has committed to funding 10,000 homes using the Inclusive Design Standards. In such competitive markets, these examples signal a major shift toward scale and impact.

The Kelsey had a 2023 budget of $5.4 million, including $3.1 million in loans to the housing developments they co-develop, money that covers Inclusion Concierge staffing and helps ensure The Kelsey’s pivotal role throughout the development and construction process. Their team of 19 is a mix of people with and without disabilities.

Micaela grew up with her cousin and friend, Kelsey, who lived with multiple and significant disabilities. Kelsey is the co-founder of The Kelsey and the organization’s namesake. The cousins went through many stages of life together, and from a young age, Micaela couldn’t help but see the world through a lens of inclusion. The typical perception was that Kelsey’s disability limited her – but Micaela understood that Kelsey was mostly constrained by the context of the world around her.

As a 15-year-old, Micaela founded Unified Theater, a youth-led organization where students with and without disabilities wrote, produced, and performed shows together. She rejected the “buddy” or “helper” model that is so common in school-aged contexts where non-disabled students are praised (or given community service credit) for interacting with their disabled peers. Instead, Micaela used theater as a mechanism that allowed disabled young people to live in an inclusive society. Unified Theater was the first program where disabled young people held leadership roles in school activities. Micaela ran the organization through high school, college, and full-time for five years after graduation. Today, it still operates nationally as a program of the non-profit Kids Included Together. Their founding school recently put on its 20th production.

The barriers to access and inclusion that Kelsey often faced were most pronounced in her early twenties, when Micaela secured housing within 6 months of graduating from college–a process that took Kelsey 6 years. Despite wanting to live in an integrated setting, Kelsey's only option was a traditional group home where she had adequate support but not the inclusive community that she had experienced as a young person. Micaela quickly realized the systemic nature of what Kelsey had experienced – and saw alumni from Unified Theater face similar challenges. Former students talked about the “abyss of adulthood” for disabled people, as most of the inclusive programming and engagements for disabled people are focused solely on youth. Micaela began to better understand how these efforts (including programs like Unified Theater) are investing in a future that simply doesn’t exist for most disabled adults.

Micaela structured her graduate education around the lack of accessible housing for people with disabilities, first at Harvard Kennedy School for a Master in Public Policy, followed by a Master of Business Administration in Ireland. She received a research grant from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and published leading research on this topic. Micaela originally sought to work for organizations working at the intersection of disability and housing, but after years of research and field analysis, she realized that such organizations did not exist and decided to create one herself. Micaela and Kelsey co-founded the organization in 2017.