Displaying items by tag: unsuitable accommodation

Thousands of disabled people live in unsuitable homes, while cities fail to plan for wheelchair users. Three of the ten largest cities have no requirements beyond national guidelines, which only provide wheelchair users access through entrance doors and hallways on ground level. Disabled people face long housing searches, huge extra costs to convert accommodation, or living in a dangerous home. The Equality and Human Rights Commission said failure to plan for fully accessible homes is a ‘hidden crisis’ in housing for disabled people. The government said it will strengthen the national standards. As the number of disabled people increases, it is estimated that 400,000 wheelchair users in England alone are living in unsuitable accommodation. Many of our disabled cannot live independently. They cannot afford the huge costs for adaptations or specialist accommodation; some can’t even use parts of their own homes without someone coming in to help them.

More than 210,000 children are estimated to be homeless. The Children's Commissioner for England says that, as well as the 124,000 children officially classed as homeless, a further 90,000 are estimated to be ‘sofa-surfing’. Her report tells of families housed in repurposed shipping containers and office blocks, and whole families living in tiny spaces. Councils blamed a £159m funding gap. The report, entitled Bleak Houses, found office-block conversions in Harlow in which over 1,000 whole families live in single rooms barely bigger than a parking space, and shipping containers which are blisteringly hot in summer and freezing in the winter months being used in Bristol, Cardiff and London. The report warns that a further 375,000 children in England are in households that have fallen behind on rent or mortgage payments. This means that thousands more are at financial risk of becoming homeless in the future.