Community News

“Oh my gosh,” a surprised Ainslee Hooper said as she scrutinised the super user-friendly facilities of genU’s All Abilities House at Villawood’s Armstrong Mount Duneed.

Ainslee, who heads up Geelong-based Accessability Business Consulting, was taken by the cutting-edge level of features in the display home ­– from moveable cupboards, sinks and benches to charging stations, fire systems and acoustic insulation.

Her verdict: “It’s really good.”

Ainslee’s ABC is looking down to help address accessibility issues holistically.

“Villawood are doing so many exciting things and I love the focus on community. Club Armstrong is a beautiful feature,” she said.

“Many great ideas that will help so many people …the accessibility landscape is definitely changing, and I am excited to see where it goes from here.”

High praise indeed, coming from a consulting anthropologist with a lifetime of tangling with poor systems and services and now driving business cases for far, far better access across housing, workplaces, industry and community facilities.

Ainslee joined genU’s Natasha Williams and Villawood’s Mike Treloar to inspect the Burbank-built showcase, a display village house aimed at not just highlighting market-available features but also normalising the house-hunting process for people with a disability.

Ainslee has been working with Geelong business incubator Runway HQ’s Brandon Burns, an Armstrong resident, and Circus Media’s Carly Post, a Villawood alumnus, to get her new consultancy up and running.

The genU house was a big eye-opener for her. She said there was amazing technology out there to assist people living with a disability.

Ainslee is also working with different authorities and planning agencies with a mind to enhancing commercial project accessibility.

We’ll have more on Ainslee’s efforts in the near future, so watch this space.