Accessibility is a design requirement here, not a retrofit.

Preferred Housing Network is built to be usable by the widest possible range of people, including people using screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, magnification, voice input or reduced-motion settings. This applies both to this website and to the process behind it.

We treat accessibility as an ongoing practice rather than a one-time audit. Where we know something falls short, we say so below rather than claiming full conformance.

• All interactive elements are reachable and operable by keyboard, with a visible focus indicator.
• Heading levels follow a logical order, and landmarks are labelled, so screen-reader navigation works.
• Every form field has a programmatically associated label. Required fields are marked both visually and for assistive technology.
• Error messages appear as alerts and describe what to do next, rather than only changing color.
• Color contrast is checked for body text, headings and interactive controls against their backgrounds.
• The rotating announcement bar includes a pause control, is not a live region while rotating, and respects the operating system's reduced-motion setting.
• Animations and transitions are suppressed when reduced motion is requested.
• Images carry meaningful alternative text, or are marked decorative where they carry no information.
• Touch targets are sized for mobile use, and layouts are tested from 320px upward.

Accessibility in a housing process is not only about the website. Accommodation requests from applicants, residents and agency partners receive individualized review against the specific property — entry, doorways, stairs, bathroom configuration and evacuation route.

We do not apply blanket exclusions based on disability or on the use of assistive devices. You are never required to name a diagnosis in order to request an accommodation, and where a request cannot be met we say so directly rather than leaving it ambiguous.

We would rather list these than imply a standard we have not met:

• No independent third-party accessibility audit has been commissioned, so this statement reflects our own testing rather than external certification.
• This site does not yet offer a documented conformance level under a published standard. We are working from WCAG principles, but we are not claiming formal conformance.
• Third-party components (including the spam-protection widget on our forms) are outside our direct control and may have their own accessibility limitations.