When he was single, he could move his wheelchair around the very small west London flat, which has a bedroom but no living room. But when he got married three years ago, he and his wife's double bed made it impossible to get the wheelchair through the bedroom door.
Hassan has never been able to use the kitchen because he can't reach the top cupboards and appliances, particularly when crawling. A cooker and washing machine stand in the hallway waiting for someone from the council or housing association to fit them. Before Hassan got married, friends came over to cook for him.
"The council said the kitchen is adapted, but I can't reach anything, so where did it get the idea that it was adapted for me?" he says. "The person who designed this place didn't know anything about disability."
Because Hassan's flat has some adaptations, albeit unsuitable ones, he is a lower priority for rehousing than people still waiting for one of the scarce number of adapted homes in the borough. He is just one of many people marooned in flats that are only partially suited to their needs because the shortage of adapted flats is so severe that there is nowhere suitable for them to go.
More than a quarter of the UK's 750,000 wheelchair users live in homes where it is hard for them to move around or get in and out, whether they are in the private or social sector. More than one in 10 of them wait more than three years to be offered a suitable rented home instead.
Across the UK, 300,000 more homes adapted for disabled people are needed; 21,625 of Kensington & Chelsea's 158,919 inhabitants were listed in the 2001 census as having a "limiting long-term illness".
This situation is getting worse as the country's disabled population gets bigger: in the past 20 years the number of disabled people has increased 28% and this is expected to continue as the number of elderly people goes on rising and more of the younger population are disabled by road crashes.
Hassan sustained his injuries when he was nine. In 1967, during the civil war in Yemen, a bomb was thrown into his house, killing his parents and damaging his legs so severely that he could no longer walk. He begged on the streets for several years before being spotted by a British teacher, who sent X-rays of Hassan's legs to European hospitals.
Oxford's Nuffield Orthopaedic Hospital offered treatment. But this could not happen until the News of the World picked up on Hassan's story, by which time he was 21, and agreed to pay.
Once out of hospital, Hassan was offered a place in an institution for people with physical and mental disabilities in London's East End, where he would have had little independence. "They were treating us very badly and I said 'I'm not staying here'," Hassan recalls. "Then the council didn't recognise me as homeless because I refused to live in the home for the disabled."
After that he stayed in various cities across the UK, living in B&Bs and hostels and only contacting social services if he needed help. "They were very rough places," he recalls. "There were drug addicts and alcoholics. You slept five to a room and there were no facilities for the disabled at all.
"I had a bottom bunk bed on the ground floor, or higher if there was a lift, although I went to one hostel in Covent Garden where I had to crawl up to the third floor because there was no lift."
He was staying in another London hostel when Kensington & Chelsea council offered Hassan his current flat. He accepted without visiting it. "I was very ill and I just wanted to get out of the hostel. I said, 'If it's on the ground floor, I'll take it.'"
Diversity has tended to mean homes for minority-ethnic and women tenants rather than the disabled
It is possible to see why the council thought the flat was suitable. It has extra-wide doors and some of the kitchen and bathroom units are low enough to be reached from a wheelchair. A spokesman for Kensington & Chelsea said: "All accommodation in the royal borough is in great demand and property which has been adapted or purpose built for wheelchair users is particularly at a premium. As soon as possible, once Mr Hassan had joined the housing register and we knew about his circumstances, we found him suitable accommodation."
Hassan's wife
The lack of space has hit Hassan's wife especially hard. "She can't have visitors because they have nowhere to sit. Muslim women don't sit next to a man; I am sitting here, and there's nowhere else to sit so her friends can't come over." Instead, the couple try to escape the flat during the day, taking buses all over the city.
Hassan himself has been very depressed by his living conditions and feels let down by his social workers – particularly in his early dealings with them. "My social workers had been promising me new accommodation for 10 years and they didn't tell me to sign up [to the housing waiting list]. I didn't know how the system worked."
Eventually he asked the housing department about the chances of getting a home, only to discover he wasn't on the waiting list. He joined the list a year and a half ago, with 43 people ahead of him.
Five months ago, however, the housing department advised him to apply to housing associations that had wheelchair-adapted accommodation, so Hassan's story has a happy ending. He applied to specialist association John Grooms and will move into his new flat today.
Fortunately, design has moved on since Hassan's last flat was built. The Housing Corporation now has design guidelines for wheelchair-accessible flats to ensure there is enough space. The Building Regulations stipulate that new homes have basic features to make them accessible for wheelchair users, such as level thresholds, and the government has promised a review of these regulations with a view to incorporating some or all of the more exacting Lifetime Homes Standard, which comprises 16 points to make housing adaptable for people with disabilities.
This standard, designed by Habinteg Housing Association and social research body the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, says rooms should be large enough to allow a proper turning circle for a wheelchair, and that basins and toilets should be positioned on structural walls so other walls can easily be moved to expand the room. New social housing in Wales and Northern Ireland must already meet this standard but this is not yet a requirement in England.
Paul Gamble, director of development at Habinteg, said: "It's important all properties are designed to be adaptable. With all the development going on in the Thames Gateway, for example, it's important level thresholds and reinforced bathroom walls for grab rails are included early on, when they don't cost much."
Getting the right data
But there are still not nearly enough new flats like this available now. One reason is that many councils have little information on the housing needs of disabled people in their area and therefore adapted housing has not been a significant feature of local plans. They are concerned with diversity in housing, but this has tended to mean homes geared towards minority-ethnic communities and women rather than the disabled.
David Harmer, chief executive of John Grooms, says a national survey is needed to find out the housing requirements of disabled people in every local authority in the UK. He hopes the regional housing boards will take up the cause of adapted housing. The Greater London Authority has already said 10% of housing should be accessible for wheelchair users – though housing minister Keith Hill caused some consternation by suggesting this target should be flexible. Harmer said, however: "The GLA's 10% target is the way to go and we are advocating that for the rest of the country."
Yet while the 10% target is a big step in the right direction, there will need to be many more giant leaps before the gap in housing adapted for wheelchair users is bridged.
Hassan's story shows how a greater supply of properly adapted accommodation can transform the lives of people with disabilities.
Source
Housing Today
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