Welcome to the MFON Housing Zone

Looking to the future

Reside with Progress’s (RWP) Head of Business Development Tammy Murray shares her five tips to help young people with SEND who are starting their housing journey.

Most young people and/or their families are not aware of the range of housing options available to people with a learning disability. They often wouldn’t know where to start or how to navigate the system to find the housing option that is most suitable. It all depends on the particular needs and wishes of the person in question and how that support will be sourced, supported, or funded.

It’s important to speak to a housing expert as early as possible when you start to think about housing for a young person. Here are my top tips to get you started:

Work out what type of home you want and where

Would you prefer to live alone or with other people? Is it important to you to have privacy? You need to think about what is best for you. Start planning and take the time to research what the housing options are, and look at other areas apart from the one you are living in now. For more information, click here: https://www.ndti.org.uk/resources/preparing-for-adulthood-all-tools-resources/pfa-independent-living

Do your research

Find out as much as you can about the areas that you’re looking in. You could search online for the following:

• Charities that help with housing.
• Housing associations.
• The local council that deals with the housing.
• Local estate agents who let out properties.
• Local housing workshops that you can attend.

Think about how you will pay for your home

You might be able to apply for Housing Benefit. Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates are used to calculate Housing Benefit for people who are renting from private landlords. You can find out what the local rate for a postcode is here: https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/

To find out more information, see below:

• For renting, you can send in a query on the contact form to Lets for Life and find out if the organisation operates in your area: http://www.letsforlife.org.uk/
• For housing advice and information: https://www.mencap.org.uk/advice-and-support/housing

Put your name down on the local council’s housing waiting list

To apply for social housing, you need to be on the local authority housing waiting list. Apply as early as you can because waiting lists can be long. The system is often known as the choice-based letting system. You can write to the council’s housing department or fill in the application form online. You will need to say what type of place you need and that you will need support. You can say that you will find it too difficult to bid for properties and you would like to be considered for a direct allocation.

Think about shared home ownership

There may be some shared ownership schemes in your local area. Ask the housing department at the council for information. There is a Government scheme designed to help people with a long-term disability buy any home for sale on a Shared Ownership basis (part-rent/part-buy). It is known as HOLD (Home Ownership for People with Long-term Disabilities). There are some specific conditions attached to HOLD and you can find out more here: www.ownyourhome.gov.uk/scheme/hold/

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Abut Tammy Murray

Tammy began her career working for the NHS as a nursing auxiliary. She then moved on to work for a large Registered Social Landlord, where she covered a variety of roles taking up managerial roles during the 11-year period. Tammy led a pilot for a Housing Brokerage Service in Essex, providing a person-centred approach and an outcome focused service to individuals to access housing options. Tammy then began to work nationally for the Housing and Support Alliance; a charitable national membership organisation providing housing and social care advice to families’ local authorities and professionals, developing innovative housing solutions, now known as Disability England. In addition to this, she has taken on consultancy projects for the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTI) Tammy joined Reside Housing Association in December 2018 as Head of Business Development. Reside merged with Progress Housing Association in 2022 and is now known as RWP Reside With Progress.

An Independent Woman

MFON columnist, Aoife Casson, has made the huge leap of buying her own home. In her latest column, Aoife talks independence and offers advice on overcoming the stresses of moving house.

How do you overcome the stress of moving?

I want to be more independent; do I need to buy my own home to do that?

New guidance on delivering better home adaptations

Too many tenants are facing delay and frustration according to a brand-new report that examines the workings of adaptations for social housing tenants. 

The ‘Housing Associations and Home Adaptations: Finding Ways to Say Yes’ report provides recommendations for housing associations, local authorities, central government, and the Housing Regulator to sort out the confusion about funding and improve the speed and effectiveness of home adaptations delivery. 

It provides practical solutions to put disabled and older tenants at the heart of decision making, an inclusive approach to services, and for home adaptations to be part of the new customer-focused inspection regime. 

The research identifies: 

• Good practice, particularly in LSVTs that control their own adaptations budgets, those fully engaged with their disabled and older tenants, or where there are effective partnership arrangements. 
• Issues in funding and delivery including splits in legal responsibility, a confusing pattern of funding, a post code lottery in the type of services provided, complex customer journeys and frustration for staff in local authorities and associations. 
• Rather than saying ‘yes’ to adaptations, barriers are often placed in the way and adaptations may be refused, especially in general needs properties. They may also be removed unnecessarily when tenancies change. 
• Moving home is not easy if a home is unsuitable or not possible to adapt. 
• Not enough accessible homes are being built and adapted homes are not recycled effectively. Asset management databases are sometimes incomplete, there are few accessible housing registers, void times are too short, and there is not enough support to match people to properties or provide help with moving. 
• Home adaptations lack importance – although disabled tenants form a substantial part of housing association populations, most associations see adapting homes as a minor operational issue. It is not part of a strategic plan to make the stock work for everyone. 
• A lack of disabled people working in the sector – a National Housing Federation Survey in 2021 showed that disabled people are under-represented as staff members, not visible as leaders in the sector, and only 4.8% of board members identified as disabled. 

Thanks to partners Habinteg and Anchor Hanover and the continued support of Taylor Wimpey Foundations Independent Living Trust commissioned this new guidance which examines the current situation and makes key recommendations for improving delivery. 

Paul Smith, Director of Foundations, the national body for Home Improvement Agencies and DFG, said, ‘Following the publication of the Independent Review of DFG in 2018 we wanted to take a deeper dive into the workings of adaptations for social housing tenants. We knew that the housing world had changed significantly from the previous guidance in 2008 and that too many tenants were facing delay and frustration.’ 

Copies of Housing Associations and Home Adaptations: Finding Ways to Say Yes can be downloaded at: https://www.foundations.uk.com/library/housing-associations-and-home-adaptations/ 

Disabled tenants and the look of independence

Sophia Dacey, Neighbourhood Manager with accessible housing provider Habinteg Housing Association, shares her experiences of supporting young disabled people into their first accessible home.

Young disabled people are not alone in the common desire to assert their independence as they enter young adulthood. One sure fire way for them to do that is to move out of the family home and into their own property. This is a daunting task at any time but, given the COVID-19 pandemic and the current social climate, this is an especially tough time for young disabled people looking for accessible housing.

The reality of inaccessible housing

I can still clearly remember the nervous feeling I had when I housed my first tenant. I spent the first hour of that morning hoping the tenant liked me and praying I didn’t say something wrong, I was introducing someone to their forever home, after all.

And I remember Kelly, the 30-year-old mother of disabled Keian, aged four, eagerly walking up the stairs to my office to receive the keys to their new accessible home. Previously, Kelly and Keian had been living in a two-storey Victorian home, with little-to-no support for Keian’s living needs.

For years, they had to make do with these arrangements, with Keian being confined to the ground floor living room.

I remember feeling very emotional as Kelly described the struggles of carrying her growing son to the toilet, upstairs, and thinking of my own boys and how I’d cope in her situation.

This first experience showed me just how important an accessible home is for a disabled person.

New accessible home, new life

I recently caught up with Kelly on one of my trips to our Weston-Super-Mare scheme, which is where she lives. I asked how she and Keian had been getting on since we saw each other last.

“Great!” she said with a huge smile on her face. “Keian can move freely around the whole house and I’ve never seen him happier.

“I don’t have to risk hurting myself carrying him up and down the stairs. He’s getting older and feels more independent going to the toilet and kitchen by himself. This home has literally changed our lives.”

Since Kelly and Keian, I’ve housed many other tenants, both old and young, disabled and non-disabled. The nervousness of housing tenants goes away after a while, but the fulfilment and optimism I feel when I introduce a disabled person to a more suitable, accessible home stays with me.

More accessible homes needed

Habinteg may look like a regular housing association. If you were to randomly pick one of our schemes to visit, it’s likely that you’d see a mixture of people, but the houses generally all look the same from the outside.

Habinteg is a leading national provider of affordable accessible homes and support services. We try to promote inclusion by providing sustainable neighbourhoods of accessible and adaptable homes for both disabled and non-disabled people to share and enjoy.

We campaign alongside disabled people, regularly carrying out our own research to examine England’s accessible housing outlook. In our last Forecast for Accessible Homes, we found that outside London, just 1.5% of all new homes planned over the next decade are planned to be suitable for wheelchair users.

And, when you begin to peel away the layers of Habinteg, you realise that the organisation is much more than a provider of homes. We use our expertise to challenge negative social attitudes and promote the rights of disabled people beyond housing.

For many disabled people, finding an accessible home is key to achieving a more independent life, along with employment.

We know from analysing Government data that over 400,000 wheelchair users are living in homes that are neither adapted nor accessible. Habinteg is helping to reduce that number by developing more accessible housing for our disabled and older population.

In 2020, the Housing Made for Everyone (HoME) coalition, which Habinteg chairs, responded to the Government’s long-awaited consultation on how to increase the number of accessible homes.

We expect the outcome of this consultation soon and hope it leads to real change to ensure future generations of people, including Kelly’s son, will be able to access quality accessible housing when they reach the age to need their own independent living.

Tips on finding an accessible home

Even though there aren’t as many suitable homes for our disabled population as we’d like to see, there are still ways you can find accessible housing if you need it:

What does independence look like?

Leaving your family home can be daunting at any age. But, for someone who uses a wheelchair and is used to the support of their family, it can be a challenge to adapt to a new environment.

Take Liam Rice, for example, an 18-year-old wheelchair user who I supported to find a new home a few years ago.

Liam looked more excited than nervous. He was staring at his new living room and told me he was thinking of all the game nights he could host for his friends.

Kelly also had a similar look on her face when she was inducted and what I realised is that this look of excitement was common with all our new tenants. In my mind, this is what independence looks like.

Support for disabled tenants

There are many charities and agencies that provide funding and grants to make daily living easier for disabled people. They include the following:

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