Public Opinion About Visitability Mandates in the United States: Favorable but Divisible

Americans commonly want to stay in their current homes as they age, but few houses accommodate the physical impairments that aging often brings. One public policy tool to gradually make the housing stock more age- and disability-friendly is a “visitability” mandate—a requirement that new dwellings meet specific design standards that make them minimally usable by people with mobility limitations. Using original, nationally representative survey data from 2020, this paper analyzes public opinion about visitability mandates. Specifically, it analyzes who has relatively warmer versus cooler feelings toward people who benefit from visitability mandates. The data indicate that Americans on average feel warmly toward visitability mandate beneficiaries, but these sentiments differ by ideology, party identification, gender, age, self-assessed health status, and health experiences. Because public opinion influences the political viability of policy ideas, these findings have applied relevance for city planners, architects, home builders, public administrators, and elected officials.