IMAGINE living in a house where you can’t use the toilet, take a shower, cook a meal or go out without help. Imagine being forced to stay in hospital or live in a care home for older people when you are still of working age because there isn’t a house in your local area that meets your needs.
That’s the reality for Fiona, who has been trapped in her Fife home for the past nine years since having a devastating stroke aged just 49. Fiona was discharged from hospital into sheltered housing for the elderly as a temporary move while awaiting suitable accommodation. She is still there nine years on and has not received one offer of suitable housing in that time.
Her electric wheelchair does not fit through any of the doors so she spends up to 21 hours each day alone and confined to her bed as she cannot move around her house or go out independently. Her isolation means she is losing confidence. She craves company and is extremely upset at the way she is living.
She is not alone: there are thousands of Fionas across Scotland due to a dire shortage of accessible homes, with serious implications not only for disabled people and their families, but also for social care support, health services and communities. A major summit bringing together disabled people, their organisations and disability charities in Glasgow today will call on the Scottish Government, local authorities, landlords and housebuilders to address this situation as a matter of urgency.
Independent Living in Scotland, an Inclusion Scotland project, is hosting the 2nd Annual Disabled People’s Summit: Our Place Our Space together with Glasgow Centre for Inclusive Living, Capability Scotland, Scottish Disability Equality Forum, Blackwood and the Scottish Older People’s Assembly.
It’s particularly appropriate that today’s summit takes place on the eve of United Nations International Disabled People’s Day. This is a human rights issue for disabled people; housing is a basic right under Article 28 of the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Evidence of the scale of the problem and its impact is overwhelming. The Scottish House Condition Survey 2012 showed that 129,000 households with a person with a long-term condition or disability did not have the adaptations they needed; 68,000 had great difficulty or could not get in and out of their own homes; and 44,000 could not use their bathroom or toilet .
Figures also showed that more than 200,000 households couldn’t access essential facilities in their own home so could be considered homeless under Scottish housing legislation.
If action isn’t taken soon, an already severe situation will worsen. Scotland is predicted to have an 85 per cent increase in the number of over 75s over the next 25 years; that’s 370,000 older people, the equivalent of the populations of Paisley, East Kilbride, Livingston, Cumbernauld, Dunfermline and Perth combined, many of whom will have disabilities or long-term health conditions.
A recent poll found that three quarters of respondents felt that disabled people don’t have equal access to suitable housing, with the main barrier being not enough new-build accessible housing. Other barriers included lack of specialist housing advice, not enough low-cost housing, lack of accessible private rented property and disabled people finding it difficult to get help to adapt their home.
Despite the well-documented shortfall in the supply of accessible housing, we have not yet seen a national activity to resolve this issue. While we welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to invest £3 billion to build 50,000 affordable homes over the next five years, we need to see action that increases the supply of accessible homes.
Accessible, affordable and suitable housing is at the heart of equality, independent living and a positive sense of identity and wellbeing for disabled people. If we do not future proof our housing stock by building new accessible homes and ensuring that others can be adapted if needed, we will create a ticking time bomb that will have significant implications for services, housing and support across the country, not to mention the life chances of hundreds of thousands of disabled people.
Heather Fiskin is project manager of Independent Living in Scotland.
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