News » Independus Housing Forum - 11 March 2011
The first event of our Forum Programme for 2011 funded by Awards for All took place on 11 March at the Station in Richmond.
Linda Curran welcomed everyone saying that housing was an issue of great importance to disabled people, and that she hoped this meeting would develop into a regular Housing Forum for Richmondshire to complement the Forum which is already established in Hambleton.
She introduced the first of our speakers, Andy Mclaughlin from Broadacres Housing Association. He told us about his background and experience of housing issues over a number of years, and outlined the range of work covered by Broadacres since it started in 1983. Broadacres works across North Yorkshire and Teesdale providing social housing and care services. Funding for this comes through different sources, grants from the government set stringent standards allowing for the development of “lifetime” homes and similar high specification developments incorporating energy saving measures. Other funding comes from developers who are required to build a proportion of “affordable” homes as part of their planning permission. They will not build to the same high standards.
In Richmondshire there are a number of social housing developments which have recently been completed or are about to be started. These include Hawes, Middleham, Bainbridge, Catterick Village and Askrigg. However, there is a local residency requirement on these developments. One bedroom flats at the YMCA in Richmond are also being built, a small development for people with MH issues at Leyburn and some 2-3 bedroom houses in Colburn. However, the future is not promising with the grant funding from the Government cut in half and developers starting to pick up but only now recovering from the recession. Land availability is a big issue.
Care services had also suffered in the cut-backs, people with MH issues were sometimes the “Cinderella” service as their disability was hidden, but all disabled people needed good support services to add quality to their lives.
Allocation to social housing was done through the waiting list which was held by Richmondshire District Council. This meant that disabled people were competing with people who had high housing needs but not necessarily for accessible accommodation.
At this point Andy handed over to Mark Robson from Richmondshire District Council who was able to tell us about the system of allocating housing and the difficulties of the system. Basically, disabled people were allocated housing which was then adapted as far as possible to meet their needs. When they moved from that accommodation it would not necessarily be allocated to another disabled person. There were very few bungalows for disabled people - older peoples’ bungalows and other accommodation were strictly ring fenced and not available to younger disabled people. A single person was only entitled to single bedroom accommodation. Many of these were not big enough to meet the needs of a disabled person.
Mark suggested that Independus should build up evidence of housing need which could be fed through to the planning process. If we could show exceptional local need we could look at where land could be allocated, although he warned that planning restrictions were very rigid.
It was suggested that for the next Housing Forum we could invite a Planning Officer and an Architect – and, ideally, a builder!
Some of the issues which were raised:
- Accommodation which becomes unsuitable as a person’s needs increase with age.
- Some disabled people may need 2 bedroom accommodation (for a carer, perhaps?). It is significant that the most modern development for older people has only 2-bedroom flats
- A single disabled person living with elderly parents wanting to regain independence.
- Disabled people wanting to remain in their own community where they have friends.
- Need for parking to be close by – disabled people may be very reliant on their car.
- Need for provision for mobility buggies.
- Need for security aspects to be considered – ground floor flats are not ideal for vulnerable people, and single flats may also be accommodating some anti-social elements.
We finished our session with a presentation from Trevor Morris from Riverside Echg, the Housing Association which is involved in the new Beacon development for soldiers leaving the army. It is situated on Hipswell Road West and the building will include a training, education and employment centre, a health and well-being centre, technology and IT skills, a mini gym and library as well as a multi-function meeting room and a training kitchen and bakery. The Beacon will accommodate people in one-bedroom flats for up to 18 months and take a holistic approach to supporting them in their transition to civilian life, addressing their accommodation and employment needs.
The need for this type of provision was identified by the realisation that many rough sleepers had service backgrounds and it builds on the work already being done by SPACES which helps service personnel find accommodation when they leave the army.
Trevor spoke about some of the issues faced by soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan which sometimes have resulted in psycho-social problems, alcohol addiction as well as physical disabilities, losing limbs etc. He said there was a lot of help available from SSAFA, the Royal British Legion and Regimental Associations. The Poppy Factory had a Supported Employment scheme which gave £7.5k to an employer taking on a disabled person for the first year, and sometimes this could be extended into a second year. There was a Veterans’ Vulnerable Adults Team and Combat Stress would be involved.
There was some concern that people who went through the Beacon might end up remaining in the area, and, if disabled, would put further strains on the already limited accommodation. However, Independus was very keen to make links with the Beacon, offering what advice and expertise we could.
Linda thanked everyone very much. We over-ran our time because it was so interesting and we were so involved.
Our next Forum is on 5 April at 10.00 at the Golden Lion and is on Personalisation and Direct Payments. Please come!