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Access denied: the disabled millennials who can’t find adapted affordable housing

Meet the disabled millennials stuck living with their parents because of the lack of housing options. Sarah Graham reports. Photography by Jonathan Goldberg

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“I’m living with my dad at 32, and he’d really like his flat back,” says Nina Grant (above). We’re sat in the far corner of artisan coffee shop Harris & Hoole in Southgate, north London, a short bus journey away from Mx Grant’s father’s home.

Mx Grant (who uses gender-neutral pronouns) has an effervescent personality, which shines through in everything from their expressive speech to their quirky plaid trousers and bright red Dr Martens. But the seemingly endless process of finding somewhere to live has clearly taken its toll.

“I understand that, in the economy we’re in now, being a graduate doesn’t guarantee you’re going to have a career straight off, but I think I just assumed everything would fall into place,” they say.

Mx Grant’s situation is far from unique. Figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in November show that more than a quarter of 20 to 34-year-olds in the UK are still living in their parents’ home.


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Housing charity Shelter has warned that, without radical action to tackle the UK’s housing shortage, the figures could pass 50% within a generation. But for Mx Grant, there’s an added layer of difficulty: being disabled.

Mx Grant has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder, and has been using a power wheelchair for about 18 months. The search for accessible housing that would allow Mx Grant to live independently has already been going on for more than a year.

What was supposed to be a temporary solution has dragged on for five years.

“It’s only by luck that my dad’s flat is even sort of accessible. He bought a ground-floor flat when I was seven, long before I was disabled,” Mx Grant explains. “After I moved back in, as a graduate, I paid for a custom-made ramp to cover the porch and doorframe, but it isn’t really accessible beyond that; my wheelchair has to stay in the hall.”

What was supposed to be a temporary solution has dragged on for five years, and Mx Grant cannot see an end to it.

Enfield Council has advised looking at privately rented options, because there’s no accessible social housing available, but – unless you’re in a position to buy a property and pay for adaptations yourself – the private market seems to be even more limited, according to Mx Grant.

“Last time I checked the accessible property register, it had two available properties on it in the whole of the UK,” Mx Grant says.

So what impact does this shortage of accessible housing have on disabled millennials?

One of the biggest barriers to independence is that young disabled adults may struggle to access care hours while living at home – because councils may assume their parents can effectively act as live-in carers. But how many 32-year-olds want to be washed by their dads?

“I sometimes have to wait a week for my boyfriend to come over, so he can help me have a bath,” Mx Grant says. “My dad and I are both very independent, we need our own space, and I feel like I’m just sort of existing, not really living yet.”

For disabled people who do have care packages tied to their local councils, the need for continuity can also put limits on their property search.

“You might find a great flat that works for you, and it might only be a mile from where you are – but in a different council, and it’s a real nightmare to have your care package moved over from one council to another,” explains Lauren West, campaigns manager for charity Muscular Dystrophy UK’s Trailblazers network.

For disabled people with care packages tied to their local councils, the need for continuity can also put limits on their property search.

This transfer can take six months to a year, she explains, and most people simply can’t be without care for that long. For graduates applying for jobs after university, this can mean being restricted to job markets local to their parents’ homes.

Like Mx Grant, 20-year-old Shona Cobb only started using a wheelchair in the past few years. Ms Cobb has Marfan syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that causes chronically painful cysts at the bottom of her spine, as well as chronic fatigue, migraines and joint dislocations. She lives in a two-storey council house in St Albans, where she has to share an upstairs bedroom with her mum.

“I can drag myself up and down the stairs, but it’s incredibly painful and I basically have to stay either upstairs or downstairs all day. If I need anything from downstairs, I have to bring it all up at one time, so I’m not going up and down, putting myself in more pain,” she explains.

It’s only been a few months since Ms Cobb moved back in with her mum, following a recent break-up, but she’s no stranger to the accessible house-hunting struggle. At 18, she moved in with her partner’s parents, in Hull, with a view to finding a place with him. As her ex-partner and his brother are also disabled, their family home already had a wet room and a stairlift, making access manageable but still not ideal.

Nina Grant in Southgate, where they live with their father

“We joined the council housing list, trying to find a two-bed bungalow, but they just don’t exist. Elderly people live in bungalows and, once they move in, they’re not moving out for a long while,” Ms Cobb explains. “It was a year and a half of waiting, living with his parents, before anything came up. By the time my partner found somewhere, we’d broken up and I was moving out. Even then, it was only a one-bed, and we would have needed a two-bed for both of us if we had still been together.”

Now back in the south, Ms Cobb is concerned she won’t even be able to afford to live independently in her hometown. “The cost of living is higher down south, but you don’t see that change reflected in your benefits at all. It does concern me whether I’ll actually be able to afford to live on my own down here, especially if I get moved onto Universal Credit,” she says.

Beyond financial issues, she isn’t even certain the property she needs exists. Although there are bungalows in her neighbourhood, she explains, they too are all ringfenced for older people. “This is the only other option – I’ll just be stuck living here, sharing a room with my mum at 20. I love her, but you need your own space,” she adds.

“Disabled people get sent on all manner of wild goose chases to view properties that just aren’t suitable.” – Christina McGill, Habinteg

For Fiona Anderson, space really was of the essence when she became pregnant at 23. Ms Anderson has muscular dystrophy and, as well as using a wheelchair, requires a specialist ceiling track hoist so her carers can help her in and out of bed.

“At the time, I was living with my parents in Bury, in a home that they owned. They’d had adaptations made for me as a child, but it was too small to fit a family there, with all the stuff that comes with a baby,” she says.

In the short term, Ms Anderson and her partner moved into his parents’ council home in Bolton, and joined the registry for a council house of their own nearby. “We would have loved to have rented privately, but I already knew from friends of mine that going private isn’t really feasible if you need adaptations that would damage the property, like having a hoist anchored to the ceiling,” she explains.

Throughout her pregnancy, Ms Anderson’s partner carried her up and down the stairs of his parents’ home, to the first-floor bedroom where they were staying – a risky manoeuvre that became virtually impossible as she neared full term.

“There’s such a severe lack of accessible housing that you just have to manage; you’ve got no choice,” she says. “But we knew it would no longer be an option once we had a baby and I was recovering from a c-section. It was really about trying to find the best solution in the time we had.”

Accessibility: the context

A total of 1.8 million disabled people in the UK have an accessible housing need, according to research by housing association Habinteg – at least 78,000 of whom are wheelchair users.

“The lack of accessible housing is a really widespread problem,” says Christina McGill, a spokesperson for the association, which owns 3,337 homes nationwide.

Prospective tenants can submit an application form online or through the post, but Ms McGill adds: “It’s not uncommon for tenants, by the time they do get housed by Habinteg, to have been waiting for significant periods of time.”

Despite this, the association has also found that just 3% of local authorities in England have set targets around accessible homes.

“The National Planning Policy Framework has a fairly gentle reference in it to planning for the housing needs of older and disabled people, but there’s quite a wide variety of response to that,” Ms McGill explains.

By the time a property came up for them, she was eight months pregnant and desperate. What they ended up with was a ground-floor flat where Ms Anderson could use the shower, but not the toilet or the sink.

“It was the only property that came up in the timeframe we needed before the baby was born, so we just had to take it,” she explains. “I ended up having to use a bedpan because I couldn’t access the toilet.”

For all three of the people Inside Housing spoke to, the shortage of suitable properties has been compounded by a lack of understanding from estate agents and landlords about their individual access needs.

“Most young people today are having challenges in housing, but if you’ve got an access requirement then your options are so much
more narrow,” says Christina McGill, spokesperson for specialist housing association Habinteg.

“It’s not just about the house, it’s about whether you can use your local train station, or get to the amenities surrounding the house. Can you stay near your support network? It’s very, very tough. Disabled people get sent on all manner of wild goose chases to view properties that just aren’t suitable,” she adds.

From Habinteg’s perspective, it makes sense to ensure that publicly funded housing is doing what it needs to in order to make other services cheaper to provide.

“When you have adequate accessible homes, you reduce your social care bill and the number of health interventions required, because people are actually in a healthier environment,” Ms McGill says. “The onward benefits to the public purse of doing it right from the outset are really important to acknowledge.”

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