CRPD/C/GC/5 59. Programmes and entitlements to support living independently in the community must cover disability-related costs. Furthermore, ensuring the availability of a sufficient number of accessible and affordable housing units is crucial for deinstitutionalization, including housing for families. It is also important that access to housing not be made conditional upon requirements that reduce the autonomy and independence of persons with disabilities. Buildings and spaces open to the public and all forms of transport must be designed in a way that accommodates the requirements of all persons with disabilities. States parties must take deliberate and immediate steps to reallocate funding towards realizing the right of persons with disabilities to living independently in the community. 60. Disability support services must be available, accessible, affordable, acceptable and adaptable to all persons with disabilities and be sensitive to different living conditions, such as individual or family income, and individual circumstances, such as sex, age, national or ethnic origin and linguistic, religious, sexual and/or gender identity. The human rights model of disability does not allow the exclusion of persons with disabilities for any reason, including the kind and amount of support services required. Support services, including personal assistance, should not be shared with others unless it is based on a decision based on free and informed consent. 61. States parties shall incorporate the following elements into the eligibility criteria for access to assistance: the assessment should be based on a human rights approach to disability; focus on the requirements of the person that exist because of barriers within society rather than the impairment; take into account, and follow, a person’s will and preferences; and ensure the full involvement of persons with disabilities in the decisionmaking process. 62. Cash transfers such as disability allowances represent one of the forms in which States parties provide support for persons with disabilities in line with articles 19 and 28 of the Convention. Such cash transfers often acknowledge disability-related expenses and facilitate the full inclusion of persons with disabilities in the community. Cash transfers also tackle situations of poverty and extreme poverty that persons with disabilities may face. States parties must not add to the hardship faced by persons with disabilities by reducing their income in times of economic or financial crisis or through austerity measures that are inconsistent with human rights standards set out in paragraph 38 above. 63. Support for persons with disabilities should be assessed using a personalized approach and tailored to the specific activities and actual barriers to inclusion in the community that persons with disabilities face. The assessment should acknowledge that persons with disabilities require access to participate in activities that varies over time. States parties should ensure that personalization of support, including cash transfers/personal budgets, take into account and address the challenges that persons with disabilities face when living in rural and/or urban areas. 64. States parties should provide and disseminate timely, up-to-date and accurate information essential for informed decision-making on choices of independent living and support services in the community. This should be in accessible formats, including Braille, sign language, tactile and Easy Read formats and alternative and augmentative modes of communication. 65. States should ensure that personnel working or about to work in disability-related services, including service personnel, decision makers and civil servants monitoring services for persons with disabilities, are adequately trained on independent living within the community, in theory and practice. States should also establish criteria, in line with article 19, concerning entities applying for permission to deliver social support for persons with disabilities to live in the community and assess how they perform their duties. States parties should also ensure that international cooperation in accordance with article 32 of the Convention and the investments and projects undertaken thereby do not contribute to the perpetuation of barriers to independent living within the community but rather eradicate barriers and support the implementation of the right to live independently and be included in the community. After situations of disaster, it is important not to rebuild barriers, as an element of implementing article 11 of the Convention. 12