Scottish
Disability Equality Forum����
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Scottish
Disability Equality Forum���� |
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� Report
of SDEF Conference
9th
July, Dunblane
�Including
Us All�
�Back to main
INCLUSION IN PRACTICE � HOUSING WORKSHOPJulia
Fitzpatrick - Ownership Options
Housing
and inclusion of disabled people are topics that we could both talk about for
days, but we only have an hour and a quarter.�
We would like to give you our perspective, or our organisation�s
perspective, and then have time for questions and discussion.�
Given
that SDEF is looking to ensure that the voices of disabled people are heard,
maybe at the workshop we should be thinking about what policy debate and
campaigning needs to happen around housing issues for disabled people.�
Ownership Options - Julia Fitzpatrick Because
this is the only workshop today on housing, I�m not going to say very much
about ownership options as an organisation � rather I want to talk about the
wider housing picture for disabled people in Scotland, inclusion and what needs
to change if we or anyone else is going to achieve �inclusion in practice�
and not just �inclusion� as yet another political buzz word that trips off
the tongue but has no depth or intent.�
WHAT IS OOIS?
charity
and limited company
aims
� create access to home ownership as a mainstream
housing option for disabled people and pioneer approaches which demonstrate how
financial, legal and technical barriers can be overcome
Activities
� direct services � include SNCG,
building capacity, mainstreaming systems
Core
Values
�������
All human life is of value
�������
Anyone, whatever their impairment, is capable of
exerting choices and should be enabled to do so.
�������
People who are disabled by society�s reaction to
physical, intellectual and sensory impairment have a right to assert control
over their lives
�������
Disabled people and their families should have equal
access to the housing choices made by non disabled people� housing type,
tenure, location and quality should not be determined by impairment.
�������
Disabled people have a right to participate fully in
society � people have a right to be in the mainstream.
��������
Disabled people should have the right to support
services and facilities to enable independent living.
We
hold these values in common with a network of individuals and organisations
concerned about housing and disability, including the Disabled Persons Housing
Services, which come together under the umbrella of the Scottish Disability and
Housing Network.
(lobbying
and campaigning for equality of housing opportunity for disabled people �
anyone interested in being an active part, leave contact details)
PERSON
CENTRED WORKING
Listening to disabled people and the parents and families of disabled people speak about their experiences of services and about their hopes for change in the future is a chastening experience � but they don�t often get a chance to have their voice heard, really heard, in a forum of policy debate.�� Often people are simply overwhelmed at the scale of the bureaucracy which too often needs to be faced in order to achieve what should be so straightforward � the right house in the right place at the right time.� Why is a disabled person approaching the people in serviceland for advice about their housing options still so often made to feel they are seeking an impossible dream?� Ownership
Options can�t wave a magic wand and produce money and a house.�
But we can and do have the person or family lead the way with our support
and advice.� Our work starts from
the person or the family building up a jigsaw of their needs, aspirations and
resources.� Most importantly
inclusion in housing terms has to be about more than bricks and mortar.�
In my view our current systems � our allocations systems, our systems
of capital funding support, and, still to a significant extent, our care or
support funding systems - start from, and finish with, the bricks and mortar.�
They don�t take into account (to anything like the degree needed) the
person or family�s social networks, financial situation, the family�s
financial situation, their emotional needs, their fears and dreams about the
future.� To achieve inclusion in
housing for disabled people, systems have to change fundamentally so that a
person or family centred approach is at the heart of them.
CONTEXT� �
THINKING ACROSS TENURES
limited
supply of housing for rent
supply
of adaptable good sized council properties has diminished through the right to
buy, and housing association development programmes are not replacing these in
anything like sufficient numbers to meet needs.�
But
a lot of disabled people, or families with a disabled household member e.g. a
child, are owners � and want to remain owners � or have or could raise some
resources to contribute to funding a suitable property.�
So it seems to make sense that we should enable them to remain in owner
occupation, and reduce the pressure on the scarce rented resources.�
But we have a tendency to make assumptions about people�s choices based
on their current tenure or income � if someone is a tenant or on income
support, or in residential care, or a person with a learning difficulty, it is
assumed that they wouldn�t want to, or couldn�t afford, to buy.��
Lenders and social workers make judgements about what people choose to
spend their money on or how they manage it.�
Many disabled people do not aspire to own their own home � because it
has simply never occurred to them or anyone else that they could or should.
Until not very long ago and even now, an awful lot of disabled people live in hospitals, or nursing homes.� We still have far too many people living in large residential care homes, and shared houses for 10 or more people, who are not at home; we have young Scots with learning difficulties sent to England or Wales because there is apparently no suitable housing and support in Scotland which can cater for their particular needs; we have a disproportionate number of Scottish disabled children in residential care in England � and parents often have to fight tooth and nail to obtain the care and support which would enable them to bring their children back to live in the family home.� We
know of one person who, having achieved agreement to the necessary care for her
12 year old, has been refused any financial help with the cost of adapting her
home on the grounds that the adaptation is needed for the carer not for her son.� If the mum was not so determined her son would still be stuck
eventually becoming like another client of ours, 28 years old living with 13
people in a residential care home but not a priority in terms of a Council�s
allocation policy, because he�s not part of a reprovisioning programme.�
Some people who live with their families in an ordinary house, suddenly
find themselves in a group home with people they have never met before because
Mum or Dad can no longer look after them and no-one has the time or imagination
to do better.� I believe that our systems are institutionally
�disablist� in the same way that large organisations are coming to accept
they are institutionally racist.�
Everyone has
rights, and everyone should have the right to choose where or with whom they
live.� But over the years it has
almost become a cultural norm that if you are disabled you just have to accept
that your choices are more limited than a non disabled person and get on with
it.� But it�s very difficult to
exercise rights and choices if we don�t know what they are.� Services currently have systems into which people have to
fit, and if they don�t fit, or don�t offer what you want or need, it can be
hard to find the assistance or information you need to put all the different
parts of the jigsaw together.� And
that�s where DPHSs and Ownership Options type services come to the fore.
�Tenure
breakdown
Scottish
Homes published research on Scottish House Conditions in 1996.�
It
showed 124,000 people in Scotland with mobility problems � of whom 24,000 were
in houses suitable for their needs.� It
showed 20,000 wheelchair users in Scotland, and only 5,000 houses suitable for
wheelchair users of which only 2000 are actually occupied by wheelchair users.� More recent figures suggest there are 116,000 people with
mobility problems who are unsuitably housed and the shortfall of housing for
wheelchair users is 35,000 rather than 15,000.
There
is a massive shortfall of suitable housing for disabled people in any tenure �
and we need another 15,000 houses suitable for wheelchair users.
And
the tenure of the suitable housing that does exist,
89%
of semi detached and detached houses are in the owner occupied sector, and for
families these are often the house types that lend themselves to extension or
adaptation.
Similarly
the majority of the new house building that is going on � about 90% of it, is
for the owner occupied market.� If
the government and local authorities are seriously looking at making best use of
resources, helping people to stay in their communities and best value for things
like adaptations, it has to demand that new developments incorporate housing
designed not just to barrier free standards but a proportion of them need to be
wheelchair user standard.�
There
are around 20,000 new homes completed in Scotland each year and of these less
than 2,000 are for rent. So quite apart from the equality issues thrown up by
the imbalance in representation of disabled people in home ownership (and the
raft of reasons for that being the case), there is a pragmatic imperative in
looking at making more imaginative use of the owner occupied sector.
What
are the difficulties for a disabled person trying to buy a house?
It
is too difficult to find the right house in the right place
It
is too difficult to find the money to pay for the house, or to take out a loan,
It
is too difficult to sort out the technical problems, and work out if or how to
build or adapt a property,
It
is too difficult to find a way round or through the legal maze, particularly for
someone with a learning difficulty
It is too difficult or expensive to arrange for the
care and support that will enable the person to live in their own home
And what all of
statistics seem to suggest is that if the resources in the owner occupied sector
are to be provided and accessed, we have to be quite clear about what the
barriers are and we have to find catalysts and connectors to overcome them. And
that has been the work we�ve been undertaking over the past 3 years.
HOUSING
BILL/ACT
Possibly
this week the Scottish Parliament�s biggest piece of new legislation, the
Housing Bill receives royal assent.� The
Scottish Disability and Housing Network, and the organisations within it,
lobbied hard for changes through the process and were remarkably successful.�
Achieving equal opportunities in housing is now an obligation upon local
authorities; local authorities have to incorporate in their housing strategies
an analysis of their adapted stock and an analysis of shortfalls in housing to
meet identified needs; local authorities have new powers to make grants or loans
to individuals, as well as to organisations, to enable the acquisition,
construction, adaptation or improvement of property to meet the needs of a
disabled person.� This opens up
opportunities for a much more flexible approach � but many LA�s will still
need to be pushed to make use of the powers rather than seizing them as tools to
enable inclusion and genuine housing choice.
�
Over
the last twenty years there has been an exponential growth in Scotland in home
ownership.� By 2010 almost 70% of Scots will own their own home.�
So over the next twenty years, there will increasingly be households with
property equity where previously that property equity was vested in the public
or private rented sector.� Strategies
need to be developed which will enable people to use this equity to retain
control and choice in their housing (quite apart from helping the public purse)
New
housing strategies looking to address the needs of disabled people have to
address issues of access to the owner occupied sector, because that is where the
houses will be.�� And I�m not just talking about physical access
issues, but also about issues of financial and social inclusion in a tenure
which has a culturally valued status.�
Stephen�s
story
Stephen
is 20 and is severely autistic.
Had
lived away from home in residential college in England since age 14.�
He
and his family wanted him to be included � i.e. to live in an ordinary house
in an ordinary street, near his family, near the sort of leisure activities he
likes to do.
OOiS
worked with Council and family � jigsaw of housing and care, huge savings on
care for Council but need for a house type and location where LA or HA
couldn�t provide.� Direct payments
for care, brother is team leader.� Stephen
has bought his own house using ISMI and Scottish Homes and Council have helped
with grants via OOiS to make it financially viable.�
Moral of the tale � it works if it is led by the
person and the family, but only if the statutory organisations are willing to
let go power and control of process and resources and to take and share risks.
Housing Workshop - Pat Bagot, Scottish Homes
Scottish
Homes, soon to be a new Executive Agency, adopted a number�
of policies designed to enable people with particular needs to lead lives
as close as possible to those of other tenants and owners with a similar degree
of choice, flexibility and control of their housing environment.
Barrier
Free
We
have pioneered the provision of barrier free housing in Scotland and have made
it a condition of our grant funding since 1998.�
This has ensured that all developments where the site is suitable are
fully accessible to disabled people.� Not
only can they move freely into and around their own homes but they can also
visit other homes in the development.� We
welcomed recent changes to the Building Regulations which have made many of
these features mandatory across all tenures.
Housing
for Varying Needs
We
have also produced, on behalf of the Scottish Executive, Housing for Varying
Needs (part 1 and 2) which gives design guidance on developing housing for
people with a variety of disabilities.� Part
2 deals with shared housing with communal facilities.�
The designs focus on activity spaces rather than square metre sizes.�
This causes architects and developers problems and we are frequently
asked for standard designs related to the costs which we will fund.�
We have resisted this but are now weakening.
SNAP
We
currently spend about �7.2 million on funding housing support services.� Housing support is aimed at assisting people to sustain
tenancies and live in their own homes in the community.�
Most of this money is provided to RSLs (housing associations) to provide
additional assistance to tenants, for example assistance with claiming benefits,
getting repairs and adaptations done, reminding people to take medication or
just chatting.� In 2003 this fund
will be replaced by Supporting People Grant.
SNCG
Julia
will tell you more about this grant.� Special
Needs Capital Grant.� SNCG is
payable to developers, trusts and other bodies who are not eligible for HAG.� It can be used either to provide rented or owner occupied
housing.
Staying
Put
Our
policies are aimed at assisting people to stay in their own homes and out of
residential care for as long as they wish to do so.�
We actively encourage RSLs to provide adaptations and alterations to
assist people to stay put.� Adaptations
range from adding handrails to providing complete home dialysis rooms.� Annually we spend about �2.5 million on this working in
partnership with Occupational Therapists and Social Work Departments.�
We have recently published a Good Practice Guide with examples of joint
working and joint protocols.� We are
determined to make this a demand led service instead of one which is budget
driven.� We cannot tolerate a
situation where people are unable to use the bathing facilities in their homes
for months while waiting to have a shower installed and being told that
�nobody ever died of dirt!�
�
Care
& Repair
Scottish
Homes also provides revenue funding to Care & Repair.�
Care and Repair provides assistance to older owner occupier and disabled
home owners to make repairs and adaptations to their homes.�
People use their own resources and Repair and Improvement Grants provided
by the local authority to keep their homes fit for habitation and avoid moving.�
Scottish Homes provides about 50% of the revenue costs and the local
authority the other 50%. This covers staff salaries, overheads and
administration costs.� The Scottish
Executive also provides core funding for the central administration.�
It is the Scottish Executive�s aim to have a Care & Repair scheme
in every Scottish Local Authority.
�
Housing
Information and Advice
We cannot stress enough the need for people to have accurate accessible information and advice about, rights and obligations, services and how to reach them. Scottish Homes information and advice unit HomePoint has for over 5 years worked hard to produce a range of clear information for disabled people and their advisers.� Access to Housing in Scotland for People with Disabilities has been a Scottish Homes� best seller updated and reprinted regularly.� The Adviser�s Guide on Benefits and Personal Housing Planning for People with Disabilities have also been published and research commissioned on provision of housing information and advice services for people with visual impairment and older people. We
are convinced that accurate, independent information and advice is essential if
people are to participate effectively in developing and improving our housing
system in Scotland.� Scottish Homes
is committed to consulting with service users about all aspects of existing and
planned services.� This is often
difficult with people with disabilities and from minority communities.�
I am not sure that we have got it right but we will continue to try.�
We can reach groups which represent service users and carers but I am not
sure that we always get the views of the �service user in the street�.�
We welcome suggestions on how we can improve.
Only if we are successful can we truly put people with varying needs at the heart of policy and benefit from their skills, aspirations and� experience.� We welcome your input. � |
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