There has been a lot of recent discussion about affordable housing, including proposals to extend the right to buy scheme. As a council tenant who lives in an adapted flat, I cannot buy it because there are so few adapted flats that disabled people are often exempt from this right.
In a previous article on housing I explained about having to turn down a job because I could not find accessible accommodation. I am unemployed again and face an uncertain future because I know I will not fulfil my potential because I always have to base my career choices not on the employment opportunities available but if I can find accommodation.
How can this dilemma be solved? There is no magic bullet, but a combination of factors such as increasing the supply and affordability of property both in the rental market and to buy privately is required. The saying that ‘knowledge is power’ is appropriate here because knowledge is an important part of solving this particular puzzle. I would spread knowledge about disabled access to housing through running a campaign called ‘Make Me Houseproud’. It would have the following aspects.
First, as social housing is only available to people who live within a council area already, not those outside, it is important to find out where the current accessible housing is across the United Kingdom. Although there are websites with this information it is very patchy so trying to find accessible housing in some areas is like finding a needle in a haystack. There should be a post within government whose job it is specifically to find out where accessible housing is across the United Kingdom and create a database of it and work with local authorities to support disabled people to either move or publicise the database to disabled people. The government is keen for people to take employment if offered it. It must match that with the support to be able to do so.
Second, landlords and private individuals need to know about the funding that is available to help with the cost of adaptation. For landlords disabled people make very good tenants as it is so hard to move. Housebuilders and estate agents need to be supported to continue to build accessible homes and to promote them to potential buyers, sellers, landlords or tenants
Alongside this increased supply, the campaign would advocate the establishment of a fund to enable people to adapt a property when you need to move.
Finally the campaign would lobby the government to introduce a ‘right to move’ for disabled people. The ‘right to move’ is something it has already introduced, albeit with little-to-no support to local authorities and questions around its impact on local allocations. A right to move would need careful calibration given the need of many disabled residents already within their own local authority areas. Nevertheless, too little thought overall has currently been devoted to helping disabled workers move round the country for work. Some of these measures may begin to remedy this situation.
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Mark Cooper is former Young Labour disability officer, was Labour prospective parliamentary candidate for Orkney and Shetland in 2010, and tweets @markc1984
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