Vince Calderhead (LLB’85) is representing three of four complainants in a human-rights case seeking to establish community-based housing options for people with disabilities.

A Nova Scotia human-rights case set to begin Monday will shine a light on the province’s long-standing policy of housing people who have disabilities, and require social assistance, in locked psychiatric facilities instead of providing community-based options.

Years in the making, the case was first brought to provincial legal aid by desperate residents who had spent years in institutions they could not freely leave. Now before the Nova Scotia Human Rights Board of Inquiry, the case could transform the lives of hundreds of people with disabilities who require support but want to live in home-like settings.

It could also set a national precedent for other human-rights actions where people with disabilities believe that being forced to live in institutions in order to receive publicly funded care is discriminatory.

“This is the first case in Canada in which people with disabilities are claiming their right not just to live in communities but to receive public assistance,” said Vince Calderhead, a Halifax-based lawyer representing three of the four complainants, in an interview with The Globe and Mail.

Read more in “Nova Scotia human-rights case seeks to establish right to supported housing for people with disabilities” on theglobeandmail.com.