CRPD/C/GC/5 Various deinstitutionalization programmes have shown that the closure of institutions, regardless of their size and the relocation of inhabitants in the community, in itself is not enough. Such reforms must be accompanied by comprehensive service and community development programmes, including awareness programmes. Structural reforms designed to improve overall accessibility within the community may reduce the demand for disability-specific services. 34. In terms of material scope, article 19 covers access to safe and adequate housing, individual services and community facilities and services. Access to housing means having the option to live in the community on an equal basis with others. Article 19 is not properly implemented if housing is only provided in specifically designed areas and arranged in a way that persons with disabilities have to live in the same building, complex or neighbourhood. Accessible housing providing accommodation to persons with disabilities, whether they live alone or as a part of a family, must be available in sufficient number, within all areas of the community, to provide the right of persons with disabilities to choose and the possibility to do so. To this end, barrier-free new residential construction and the barrier-free retrofitting of existing residential structures are required. In addition, housing must be affordable to persons with disabilities. 35. Support services must be available within safe physical and geographical reach to all persons with disabilities living in urban or rural areas. They have to be affordable, taking into account persons living on low incomes. They also need to be acceptable, which means that they must respect standard levels of quality and be gender, age and culturally sensitive. 36. Individualized support services which do not allow for personal choice and selfcontrol are not providing for living independently within the community. Support services provided as combined residential and support service (delivered as a combined “package”) are often offered to persons with disabilities on the premise of cost efficiency. However, while this premise itself can be rebutted in terms of economics, aspects of cost efficiency must not override the core of the human right at stake. Persons with disabilities should not be required by rule to share personal assistance and assistants; this should only be done with their full and free consent. The possibility to choose is one of the three key elements of the right to live independently within the community. 37. The right to equal support services corresponds with the duty to ensure the participation and involvement of persons with disabilities in processes related to facilities and services in the community, ensuring that they are responsive to specific requirements, are gender and age sensitive, and that they are available to allow for the spontaneous participation of persons with disabilities within the community. For children, the core of the right to live independently and be included in the community entails a right to grow up in a family. F. Core elements 38. The Committee finds it important to identify core elements of article 19 in order to ensure that the realization of a standardized minimum support level sufficient to allow the exercise of the right to live independently and be included in the community is carried out by every State party. States parties should ensure that the core elements of article 19 are always respected, particularly in times of financial or economic crisis. These core elements are: (a) To ensure the right to legal capacity, in line with the Committee’s general comment No. 1, to decide where, with whom and how to live for all persons with disabilities, irrespective of impairment; (b) To ensure non-discrimination in accessing housing, including the elements of both income and accessibility, and adopting mandatory building regulations that permit new and renovated housing to become accessible; (c) To develop a concrete action plan for independent living for persons with disabilities within the community, including taking steps towards facilitating formal 8