Finding wheelchair accessible housing... how?

Lum

Need some help here. I'm still quite new to the whole being a carer thing.

Basically we need to move house. My partner has a variety of conditions, ME, Fibro, CRPS and chronic joint pain of an as yet undiagnosed cause being the main ones. She gets DLA at the higher rate for both care and mobility. Currently she is still working, but it finding it increasingly difficult to do things like get into work in time.

It would help greatly if, having managed to force herself to get up, take co-codamol and wait half an hour for it to start working, she then didn't have to do the morning routine on crutches (she is unable to bear any weight on one foot, the other foot is very painful and so are her shoulders), but could transfer from the bed directly to her wheelchair. This would make things a lot easier and eliminate the need for that half hour wait.

Problem is, as private tenants this isn't going to happen as private landlords aren't keen on disability adaptions, our current landlord wont even let us put a grab rail in the shower!

So we contacted Monmouthshire social services, who told us to contact Monmouthshire homesearch who told us we earned too much to be eligible for one of their houses and thus they wont help, and told us to contact social services!

If we carry on as we are now, her employers are eventually going to sack her for not making it to work on time, at which point we probably will be poor enough to be considered for an accessible council house, but obviously this isn't really a desirable outcome.

We're not opposed to renting privately, and are well aware that there are people less fortunate who have a greater need for social housing, but how on earth do we go about finding privately rented accessible housing?

moose1982

I'm guessing Monmouthshire homesearch is your local council? If so, it could be an idea to ask for details of the local housing associations in your area, they may have something. They may not, but it's an idea?

Lum

Monmouthshire Homesearch is a scheme between councils and the local housing associations. When you apply for the scheme you get put into a band from 1-5 where 1 is homeless and 5 is "you have too much money, we're not going to help you, go away". We got put in band 5 so unfortunately we're stuck dealing with private landlords and letting agents.

I was just wondering if there was a site out there, like RightMove, that either specialises in accessible housing or at least has an option to search for it.

OneYorkshireLass

Lum wrote: »

I was just wondering if there was a site out there, like RightMove, that either specialises in accessible housing or at least has an option to search for it.

There is, sort of: http://accessible-property.org.uk/start.htm

You can search for private rentals but I just looked and there's only 2 in the whole of Wales. I don't know whether this is because they don't exist, or the site isn't very good*

* although there's info about it here: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/house-and-home/property/disabledfriendly-property-estate-agents-dont-get-it-1683857.html

Lum

That's exactly the kind of site I was looking for, thank you.

But yeah, two in Swansea and nothing else at all. We need to stay in the Gwent area otherwise it'll set back our NHS treatments by up to a year. Plus it's really the only place that's commutable to both our jobs.

Mupette

keep with the homesearch too

i was band 5 for other reasons, as soon as my 2nd medical form was sent in with diagnosis (1st one said being tested for) i was bumped up to band 2 i think it was, within a month i got my lovely adapted bungalow.

social services can contribute to the letter writing which all should be sent to homesearch, they also should come out and visit you, if they haven't ask them why not.

Lum

There are other problems with Homesearch as well as the banding. According to their terms, we only need a 1 bedroom property, wheras in reality because my partner works from home on days that she is too sick to drive into the office (and likewise I work from home too on days like that) we'd need an extra bedroom just to set up an office with the two computers in, but the homesearch people told me outright that they don't take things like that into consideration.

I have to confess this whole thing is starting to do my head in. We've got a government that's keen to force disabled people into work, regardless of whether they are capable or not, and here we are fighting to keep her in a job and no help is available.

Social services are, after much prodding, coming to visit us in a few weeks.

Owain_Moneysaver

Lum wrote: »

Problem is, as private tenants this isn't going to happen as private landlords aren't keen on disability adaptions, our current landlord wont even let us put a grab rail in the shower!

Private landlords have a duty to make 'reasonable adjustment' under the DDA (may be now the Equality Act) and refusing a grab rail sounds unreasonable.

Savvy_Sue

Lum wrote: »

There are other problems with Homesearch as well as the banding. According to their terms, we only need a 1 bedroom property, wheras in reality because my partner works from home on days that she is too sick to drive into the office (and likewise I work from home too on days like that) we'd need an extra bedroom just to set up an office with the two computers in, but the homesearch people told me outright that they don't take things like that into consideration.

TBH, that may be more of a problem than anything else, but as Mupette says, don't give up on Homesearch just because atm you are Band 5. You might not get a second bedroom, but you might get a property where you could make the 'home office' thing work.

It could be worth contacting the Housing Associations separately. Even if they are running 'the lists' in common with the council, they may be able to advise you of specialists in disabled accommodation locally, or new schemes and who's doing them. Would one of the part-buy part-rent schemes work for you?

Lum

part-buy part-rent wouldn't work for us. We don't plan to be in Wales more than a few years (i.e. once certain NHS stuff is out of the way and we can move without delaying treatment) as there isn't a huge amount of work in our chosen specialities around here.

Owain: The current approach from the landlord is that we can fit a bar, but would have to remove it and repair the damage when we're done. As the bathroom is tiled with textured tiles which have been painted (badly) with gloss paint, it's going to be pretty much impossible to do that.

As a minimum we'd be needing would a ramp up the front door, a shower with floor level access, a bath (as I have a skin condition that requires medicated baths), and the ability to get around the house in a manual chair. The current place isn't really suitable for fitting a shower, and I suspect the landlord would be reluctant to fit a ramp. Also the upstairs doors are narrower than standard so even if I were to carry her wheelchair upstairs, she still couldn't use it.

In an ideal property we'd have a separate bathroom with things at normal hight because I find* bending over to use accessible facilities incredibly painful, but so long as I keep myself dosed on co-codamol I could manage without this.

*In a previous job, I spent a lot of time on customer sites where the only toilets for my gender were the disabled facilities, so I'm speaking from experience here

kingfisherblue

I realise that you need certain adaptations to make life easier and less painful, and others have been able to advise you better than I can. You do say, though, that your partner needs to take medication and then wait half an hour for it to start working, before she can begin her morning routine on crutches. You also say that she is finding it difficult to get to work on time.

Could your partner get up 30 minutes earlier, so that she has time to allow the medication to work before getting ready? Could she have coffee and breakfast in bed whilst waiting for the pain relief to kick in (if you can't bring her coffee, she could use a flask - not ideal, but a possibility. Breakfast could be fruit, yoghurt, cereal placed on the bedside table the night before, keeping milk in a coolbag that is easily accessible).

Another alternative would be for your partner to take her medication and then have a shower, sitting on a shower stool. Again, not ideal, but surely a viable alternative to being late for work.

Your partner could also ask her employer if she can start work later.