Shropshire housing trust named in national disability report

In 2017, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will examine the UK, to track how well the UK is doing for disabled people's rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The report at an event held in the House of Lords earlier this month, with shadow reports created by disability groups to be submitted to the UN on their findings of disabled peoples' experiences.

Speakers include parliamentarians and organisations who have compiled shadow reports, Liz Sayce, from Disability Rights UK, and Ellen Clifford from the Reclaiming our Futures Alliance.

The report included anonymous statements from people across the country, with one from Shropshire, referencing experiences with the Wrekin Housing Trust, based in Telford.

It said: "The lack of accessible and adapted housing needs to be addressed as it costs far more to put a disabled person into a nursing home.

"Also there is the human cost as everyone wants to keep their independence.

"I was assessed by Wrekin Housing Trust in 2010 and was put in the urgent category for an adapted bungalow.

"Even though I was excluded from certain properties due to my age, I am now 50, I worked my way patiently to the top of the list by 2014.

"Then the housing trust cancelled the scheme and said I was not allowed on the waiting list because I am not an existing tenant or a pensioner.

"Adapted housing only exists in social rental sector so I am stuck in a two bed semi which is not suitable for a stair lift or ramped access.

"I have a chronic neurological condition, which has led to severe muscular atrophy and lack of sensation below my knees and elbows, plus an above the knee amputation.

"For the last six years I have had to access my property on my bum and pull myself up and down the stairs on my bum, which is very painful.

"I asked the housing trust, my MP and the ministers for disabled people and housing to ensure that adapted social housing is allocated to those in most medical need.

"They all refused and also refused to help me. I am now faced with being forced into a nursing home at huge expense in the not too distant future even though I could live independently in an adapted property."

In response to the report, the trust has said that adapted housing exists outside of the social rental sector and says following the closure of its Choose Your Home scheme, which allowed people to find adapted housing, local authorities are now the best point of contact for disabled people.

Wayne Gethings, managing director said: "We’re unable to comment on an individual case if it’s anonymous.

"But it’s incorrect that adapted housing only exists in the social rental sector, and as far as we’re aware local authorities can administer disabled facilities grants to home owners if they satisfy the relevant criteria.

“However, in response to the general points raised in the case study, the Wrekin Housing Trust did operate and managed Choose Your Home (CYH) on behalf of the Wrekin Housing Partnership, which was made up of the council and other local registered providers until 2014, when the trust served notice to cease managing CYH on behalf of the partnership.

"At this point, the council chose not to continue with the CYH system and it was therefore closed.

"The council contacted all urgent band customers who were not Trust tenants, as they felt it was an important message to ensure people were aware of the changes, and to inform them that the council would be the single point of contact going forward for all customers wanting a home in Telford."