Category Archives: Disability

Disabled facilities are not storage spaces.

14 Saturday Apr 2018

Posted by in access, Activism, Disability

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“Disabled facilities are not storage spaces.”

You’d think the above statement would be obvious. After all, what use is a cubicle or toilet if it can’t be used for its intended purpose? Unfortunately, the answer is often found inside – where these facilities created to enable wheelchair users to try on clothes or use public conveniences are misappropriated as store cupboards.

I cannot tell you the entire range of items that can be found in accessible loos, but to give a brief picture from my own experience: mop buckets and cleaning equipment, excesses of nappy bins, unfolded baby changers, staff members’ bicycles, zimmer frames and wheelchairs belonging to other patrons, and even folded wheelchairs belonging to the venue itself. For a wheelchair user, having the space to enter and safely transfer to the toilet, let alone turn around to exit again without contorting oneself, is paramount. Having the facility stuffed with unnecessary objects and obstacles often prevents wheelchair users from being able to transfer and turn around safely, as well as from accessing the emergency pull cord (which has its own ongoing issues with being cut or tied up). In the worst case scenario, a wheelchair user may find themselves without a toilet they can use while out of the house. We shouldn’t have to pre-check that the toilets are not being used to store things before we choose where to go for supper, on top of checking all the other accessible points that are needed but sadly lacking in so many public places.

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THREE nappy bins (count ’em!) in a shop’s accessible loo, preventing the ability to turn around.

And then there are fitting rooms. What prompted this post was a visit to Topshop the other day, my local branch in the Palace Exchange, Enfield Town. The shopping centre itself is pretty good for access – it’s all on one level, all shops are level access, most shops have lifts if they have more than one floor, and there is an accessible loo that can be accessed by Radar key. I don’t normally try on clothes – it’s less exhausting for me to buy something then try it on at home and return it the next week if it doesn’t fit – but I was having a good day and wasn’t sure which size of the shirt I liked would fit me. I was pleasantly surprised that they’d thought to include a wheelchair accessible fitting room, but less pleasantly surprised by what it was being used for:

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Even the models in their adverts would struggle to squeeze into here.

The staff member monitoring the fitting rooms was very apologetic, and helped me cram my chair into a normal cubicle and pull the curtain around its sticking-out arse (yes my chair has booty). Although I managed to try on the clothes I wanted to in a very small space, I was left feeling that “sorry we’re using the accessible cubicle to store sale rails” wasn’t really good enough. What if someone came in who really needed that larger space? Someone using a larger wheelchair, or who needed someone else to assist them in trying on clothes? Not to mention access to the emergency pull cord….again.

I’ve tweeted to Topshop and haven’t had a reply yet. I’ll keep trying. This brings me onto how to address the misuses and abuses of facilities meant for disabled customers:

COMPLAIN. Complain as loudly and as publicly as you are comfortable with, in person or online. Tell your friends, get the message shared. It is shameful to misuse an accessible space like this, and the abuses of them will only stop when it becomes seen as an unacceptable thing to do. This won’t happen without public pressure from customers both disabled and non-disabled. So, next time you’re in a clothes shop with an accessible fitting room, have a look and see what it’s being used for.

In the meantime, I await a response, any response, from Topshop….

Further Adventures in Bureaucratic Incompetence.

10 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Blog, Disability, Housing, Mental Health

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Will I ever share good news to do with housing? Well, one day I hope to but today is not that day. When you’re dealing with a department as shambolic, uncommunicative and Kafkaesque as the council’s housing department, you have to cross your fingers and pray that all other agencies involved are on the ball. That appears not to have happened.

This afternoon I spent 40 minutes in an airless back office that smelt of feet, waiting for the results of the Great Bureaucratic Incompetence-Off. I knew that the council had sent a form (plus a freepost envelope!) to my GP back in October – I knew this because it had been put into the system shortly before I had an appointment in November, and the GP I saw had told me her colleague would be doing it soon. I also knew that it was now five and a half months later, and I had seen zero progress as far as housing went – but also that sometimes the council needed something akin to 20,000 volts up the arse to do anything with the information they themselves had requested. However, an afternoon at the housing office is only slightly more preferable to one spent having a filling without anaesthetic, and I assumed that finding anything out from the GP’s office would be somewhat easier than dealing with staff at the housing office (you know those characters in videogames who have important things to say to you but you can’t ever work out the right thing to make them say it?). I guess in retrospect 40 minutes in an eau-de-pied office surrounded by broken blood pressure machines was better than [time doesn’t actually exist in a housing office] the alternative.

“There’s a queue, dear”, said the receptionist, when I asked her to look up the letter on the system, and see if anyone had “actioned” it (arrgh, not a verb, I refuse to accept it).
I was aware there was a queue, I had waited in it for 10 minutes, and now I was at the front of it. “Can’t you come back another time?” Mindful of the ‘aggression will not be tolerated’ rules laid out on laminated pages on the counter, I aimed for ‘snippy but polite’ and pointed out that there was always a queue and by the standards of queues I’d been in there, this was quite a mild one. Five minutes later I found myself guided to the back office by the reception manager, and left for 20 minutes or so while she tried to find out some more information. She returned holding the sheaf of printouts that the first receptionist had handed to me 20 minutes ago. No, nothing had been done with the forms since they arrived in October. For over five months I sat at home like a lemon (again!) assuming someone was doing something with the information I had given them (again!) but instead the Thing That Needed Actioning (argh!) was sitting in a to-do pile in another dimension (again!)*. She left again for a while, and came back to offer me an appointment to fill the form out tomorrow morning with, awkwardly, the same GP who told me that her colleague would be doing the form five months ago.

(*) If this sounds depressingly familiar, it’s because it is. From January til June 2017 my housing application for impending homelessness sat in an unattended inbox until my friend (who is a housing support worker, but not for my council) badgered them into finding it and starting the process. So that makes a grand total of 11 and a half months of unnecessary delay out of the 15 months since I submitted my application to the council. Should I have sat around for both delays, waiting for them to get this far without chasing anyone up? Of course not! – and that’s where the paralysing anxiety comes in, and the depression that makes me too miserable to even think about housing, and the fatigue that prevents me from being in any way useful most of my waking hours. Basically, all the things that will go on that medical form tomorrow. It took until today for me to feel okay enough to ask about the letter; it’s nearing a miracle I still have the energy to write about it after.

THIS is why I need an advocate, a support worker, a someone who can do the chasing-up and checking-in. It’s not me trying to shirk responsibility for my own endeavours, but trying to ensure that I don’t fall between the cracks again. Because I have, due to the aforementioned assortment of brain kittens and body woes. When I do speak to people about it, their assumption is often that I’m trying to weasel out of doing my own work; I’m educated, well spoken, on paper I should have my shit together. In reality, I’m holding the cracks together with jam. However, I have a vague plan: tomorrow I see the GP to do the form and at the same time I will ask if she can refer me to somewhere. If I have no luck there, I see my therapist on Thursday. If no luck again, the CAB (so, somewhere around 2019 when I’ve built myself up to it….)

I’d just really love for every step in this torturous process not to come with its own obstacles. NOTHING about the housing process so far has been anything less than frustrating. At this point, “frustrating” would be a vast improvement.

For Valentines Day I got a broken heart.

16 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by in Blog, Disability

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Well, I got the answer to why my fatigue has been getting worse and worse even when my pain is manageable, I’m preserving energy by using the powerchair, and my POTS symptoms are relatively well controlled. On Valentines Day I got was a call from my cardiologist. I mentioned being so frustrated with my current level of fatigue, and that I was considering going to a private specialist. “Well, I could refer you”, he said , “but most of the patients I refer there have hypertension due to stress and fatigue due to burnout, they’re working too hard. You’re fatigued because your heart isn’t pumping effectively. Didn’t you get the letter?” (I had not gotten the letter.)
He calmly explained that they’re recently seeing this kind of cardiac fatigue in some patients, but needed to set up a research group in order to work out what’s causing it and how to treat it, if it can be treated it all. He also told me to start taking CoEnzymeQ10 at a very high dose to try and improve fatigue and retain heart function before my next appointment, when we’ll discuss more treatment options for this and the autonomic dysfunction (both very experimental areas at the moment – trust me so be so bloody niche).

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I told my friend about the CO2 problem, and she decided I was a plant. I live on photosynthesis.

The next day it got scary, as the letter arrived. It’s easier to take daunting news when it’s coming from a lovely, cheery consultant on the phone, but there’s nothing comforting or reassuring about a page of test results. I’m in heart failure which is causing abnormally high levels of CO2 in my bloodstream, as ineffective pumping action means it doesn’t leave my body at the normal rate. I’m glad I got the phone call first, because it meant the results were easier to decode and I knew I wasn’t in imminent danger because of my cardiologist’s tone, but my overall feeling throughout the day was still one of being scared and anxious, and to an extent it still is. I’ve never had to try and take in a diagnosis before like this, I’m not used to answers coming with other implications; when I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome I already knew something was wrong and finding out what it was and therefore being able to access treatment options was fantastic. Here, I didn’t know anything was wrong other than extreme fatigue, which I’d presumed was connected to the EDS/autonomic borkery; it might still be connected, we’ll see what the research turns out, although it could take literally years.

Heart failure at 32. Well, I’ve faced tougher things.

Here’s what I’ve learnt in the last day of nail-chewing and sporadic Googling:
Heart failure isn’t necessarily a death sentence, it’s a technical term for when the heart is not pumping effectively – sometimes due to thickened muscle, sometimes due to cardiomyopathy – in my case it’s still a mystery as to what’s causing it, but we know it isn’t any of the usual suspects, and we’re not expecting it to progress quickly.

I think this is going to be one of those “several stages of dealing” things. I’ve felt alienated from my body for the last couple of days, like something about it has fundamentally changed although of course all that’s really changed is what I know about it. Today I’m focussing on what I know:
I know I feel incredibly grateful that back in 2015 my local hospital’s cardiology department referred me to a specialist heart centre because they themselves didn’t know much about autonomic problems. I know I’m not panicking, because my cardiologist isn’t panicking. I know I don’t want to tell my mum. I know what’s wrong now.

The Resolution Solution

03 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by in Blog, Disability, Mental Health

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I tend to make the same New Year’s Resolutions each year: read more, write more, do my physio, wear my bruxism mouthguard, be happy with my body shape and size as it is. This year I’ve also resolved to start swimming again (aim for once a month), and see my mum more (again, once a month would be a great increase). I try not to  see them as firm resolutions as much as goals it would be nice to achieve, but even this softening of the term doesn’t stop me sometimes being hard on myself when I don’t manage to keep them up, even though it’s ill health and not laziness or lack of willpower that causes this. Depression stops me enjoying books, which are, when being read, my greatest joy; writing is hard to focus on when fatigued or in pain, or when the brain kittens are playing; the mouthguard hardly got worn at all in the first 10 months of last year thanks to a rogue wisdom tooth.

So, this year I’ve decided that in addition to my standard well-intentioned resolutions, I will add another: I resolve to try my hardest not to be angry with myself when health, physical or mental, prevents me from keeping a New Year’s Resolution, or an appointment, or a social event. All being angry with myself does is encourage me to wallow in self-pity over my shonky collagen and propensity to sadness, and I’m not a fan of self-pity when it comes to things I cannot change, where I cannot turn that self-pity into dogged determination. If I only read 16 books again, as I did last year, so be it – at least I read some books. If I only wear my mouthguard every few nights, that’s better than not at all. One thing I am determined to stick to, though, is the writing. One of the reasons I set up my Patreon page was to give me an impetus to write, if not to a schedule, then at least with greater frequency. But, if  my health gets in the way of even that important goal, then I will try to remember the last and most important resolution for this year.

 

 

Ability Bow – a gym for disabled people in London, hit by Tory cuts.

12 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by in Activism, Disability, Government Cuts

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The Tories are taking away from disabled people with one hand, and outright stealing with the other. I recently received a message from the user of one depleted service, asking me to spread the word. I recognised it as a gym that I had once been recommended to use myself when I was unable to do my physiotherapy exercises on my own, so I was shocked to hear that many of its services, including the ones I had been recommended, were no longer available.

Ability Bow is located in the heart of East London, and was set up in a disused church after a community campaign in 1998. It accepts both disabled and non-disabled members, with programmes tailored to each person’s ability and goals. Disabled and elderly people are frequently referred from their GP, so that they can benefit from what Ability Bow offers. It’s no surprise that the gym is described as “busy” with the amount it offers, including specialist sessions for stroke patients, people with MS, people with learning disabilities and, still on the website as “starting soon”, a programme for D/deaf and hard of hearing members. From 2006-2016, over £2.3 million was raised so that 3650 disabled members could exercise safely and with supervision  – the gym is wheelchair accessible, with accessible changing rooms, equipment, showers and even a sauna! 

Most of the people we work with have had a life-changing event such as a stroke or spinal injury or the diagnosis of a long-term condition like MS or Parkinson’s Disease. We accept referrals from GPs, physiotherapists and other Health or Social Care professionals and we have no exclusion criteria – we do not turn anyone away no matter how complex their disability making Ability Bow the only service of its kind in London. – from the Ability Bow website

The Ability Bow gym is an active, and beneficial part of both the East London and disability communities. However, in October 2016, due to a lack of adequate government funding, Ability Bow was made to cut half their professional staff and subsequently many of their services. Currently the Ability Bow gym is only open for those who can exercise without close supervision (after their initial supervised introductory sessions), which leaves 60% of their membership, who have been referred from their doctors and need more support or 1:1 sessions, without any gym services at all (the nearest similar service is in Birmingham). This is a huge blow to the regular users, who now have no support to exercise, and also a self-defeating move from the government – the long-term rehabilitation offered by the gym reduced hospital admissions, physiotherapy needed, and amount of medication and care needed in several disabled gym members surveyed. The money saved by cutting the gym services will be added onto the additional cost for the NHS and social services. It’s not just the exercise either – the members no longer catered for are missing out on socialisation, interaction, familiarity; things many severely disabled people lack due to a rotation of unfamiliar carers and lack of support.

The testimonies speak for themselves:

“My daughter uses the gym regularly. She is long term disabled. She no longer gets regular physio. The reason is funding cut. The excuse is that she has the gym to keep her agile. Now the gym is being affected by cuts! What a disgrace. The top priority for funding in the city should be important projects like this!” – Akiva

“My wife is a user of Ability Bow. It is a rehabilitation centre as welll as a gym. My wife was always falling due to her poor balance and mobility limitations. Use of the the specialist/adapted equipment at Ability Bow and the support from staff has helped her build strength and develop confidence which in turn has reduced her falls and visits to A&E. As her carer, Ability Bow helps me to help her, Please save Ability Bow” – Joseph

“I have worked here for the last 7 years and it’s one of only 2 or 3 gyms in the country that caters for people with serious health conditions with specialised equipment.I have loved working at this gym and seeing the life changing impact it has had for clients.” – Andrew

“…my wonderful sister attends the gym and has benefited immensely. The staff and centre do fantastic work helping some of the most vulnerable and often forgotten members of the community. The gym provides a much needed and invaluable service.” – Mary

You can find more testimonies, and information on how to help campaign to restore the gym’s services at the Ability Bow website or on the campaign’s Facebook page. 

There is a 38 Degrees petition here, and enquiries on Twitter can be directed to @DJ_Paperwork. 

 

 

Where Are All The Accessible Properties?

31 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Blog, Disability, Housing

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I came back from 10 days away to no emails from the council after our visit there a couple of weeks ago. The friend who is acting as my advocate sent them an email when I told him this, and got a quick reply that I should soon be able to look for private rented accommodation in the borough, then use their scheme to cover the deposit. Ignoring the fact that I should have been sent this information as soon as I had been approved (with J cc’d), the deposit is not what I am having problems with, as my dad has already offered to pay it (a small but arguably fair recompense for evicting me). The problem I am having is with finding suitable rented accommodation in the first place. Heck, it’s what I’ve been trying to do for the last several months! I was told first in June that I’d have to look for private rentals because the council itself did’t have any accessible properties on their books, but I only went through the council because I was having trouble finding any affordable accessible properties in the whole of London; limiting my search to one borough, even to properties that have agreed to house council tenants, seems doomed to fail. I’d optimistically hoped that if Enfield Council didn’t have any suitable properties then maybe they could refer me on to another council that did, or a housing association that the public can’t access independently.  Enfield do have a housing association that works with them, but I’m still waiting to see if I’ve been approved for referral. If I am, then I will have to see if they actually have any accessible properties either. If neither have any, then what?

So where are the wheelchair accessible properties? I’ve found some on general property rental sites during my 8-and-a- bit-month search. They’re generally accessible by coincidence rather than design, and in new blocks of flats that definitely don’t want people like me applying; the kind that have concierges, and pot plants in the hallways. It goes without saying that they are not affordable, even with housing benefit. I could cover the difference for one or two months, and then I’d be out of money and back to square one. It also goes without saying that most properties, accessible or not won’t accept housing benefit, or sometimes ANY:

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Disability Discrimination is alive and well in the UK in 2017.

I suspect the answer is that accessible properties are dying out. The local council used to own many, which got sold off along with much of their general housing stock. The new landlords take out the adaptations, and raise the rent. They can deny installations of equipment needed to help disabled people live independently, and they can evict tenants without good reason just to redecorate a bit then hike the rent up. I haven’t been able to find somewhere to live in almost nine months with a very flexible eviction date, so I don’t imagine I’d do very well with just a month’s notice.Of course, if you can afford to buy your own home and make the necessary adaptations to it, that’s another matter. However, like many disabled people in the UK, I live on disability benefits and am therefore not allowed to save up for a deposit, though I do enjoy imagining the look on a bank employee’s face should I present my financial profile and ask for a mortgage. It seems the wiser thing to do should have been to wait until I had a career, savings, and a mortgage before becoming disabled. Silly me.

Through all this, I am struggling to keep my mental health together. I’ve worked really hard since January’s housing related episode to keep a balance, but when I got the forwarded email yesterday evening, my mood plummeted and I’ve been treading a dangerous line ever since. I can’t seem to engage with the council or think about the process without sacrificing the progress I’ve made since January, and I’m not currently in therapy because the CMHT doesn’t have enough staff to run the group yet (it seems once they’ve decided on the best course of therapy for someone, this can’t be changed due to such trivial things as staff cuts). I’ve spoken to the social worker there before, but she said she didn’t deal with the council because they never picked up the phone, so that’s another line of support cut.

In trying to be proactive, I’m writing this. Angry blogging is my first line of defence. Delegating research to friends who offer help is another. Does the council have a duty of care to appropriately house me, or does their responsibility end at offering me the chance to bid on unadapted properties? How much difference can getting my (shiny new Labour) MP involved make? Or the media? That kind of research. What also helps is that, unusually, I have quite a lot on my plate right now at least writing-wise, but this does rely on keeping the clouds from gathering in my brain. Once I’m fogged with depression, productivity becomes impossible.

Onwards, somehow!

 

Why I’m Suing A Bus Company

08 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Blog, Disability

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I’ll get to the nitty gritty first:
I’m suing a bus company because their repeated lack of enforcing the wheelchair space is making me angry, especially after January’s Supreme Court declaration that bus drivers need to do more to ensure wheelchair users can board their buses. After January things in general got a tiny bit better, and then slowly reverted back to how it used to be – and then it got worse on one route that I use several times a week! Any instance where access gets worse rather than better, in my opinion, needs immediate attention. Since the spring, I have sent numerous complaints to the bus company in question, and each time I get the same response – “we will investigate the driver if we can identify them”, but of course I am not allowed to know the outcome of the investigation. But whatever has happened in said investigations, I see no overall improvement.

The company I am taking to court is based in London. TFL bus drivers can do three things when a parent with buggy refuses to move from the wheelchair space of their own volition. They can play an automated announcement requesting that the space is cleared for a wheelchair user; they can leave their cab to ask the parent/caregiver to fold the buggy; lastly, they can offer a transfer ticket for free boarding on the next bus if folding the buggy is either not an option or not something they want to do. In the numerous instances where I was not permitted to board the bus this year, including four times within two weeks, the most a driver did was to ask a parent to move but did not mention that the space was a priority space for wheelchairs, or offer a transfer ticket. I’ve even had multiple bus drivers claim that having two buggies on at once was an exception and that they couldn’t do anything if that was the case.

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Holding my ground/delaying the bus. This tactic didn’t work.

Despite this, when I am already on board a bus, drivers have no problem letting buggies on to push into my feet and ankles, block mine and others’ exit, or to huff at me when they find they have to fold their giant buggy up because I have unexpectedly occupied the wheelchair space with a wheelchair. It seems like there is a massively uneven system at work, and, by forcing a bus company to address this in court, I hope to further the rights of wheelchair users on buses and public transport.

Lastly, I’m doing this for the wheelchair users I know who are too scared to take buses on their own because they don’t feel that the bus drivers, companies, nor the other passengers have their backs. They feel, unsurprisingly, that they are seen as a nuisance, even though many bus companies have clearly marked priority wheelchair spaces. It’s the co-opting of these spaces by people who then refuse to move or make a big fuss over it which makes us feel that way. I’m doing this because we deserve to use the spaces that disabled people previously fought so hard for.

[I have checked with my legal team, and I’m okay to talk about this case on the internet as long as I don’t name the bus company in question.]

The General Election is this Thursday – let’s Crip The Vote!

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by in Disability, Politics

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Crip The Vote emerged as a digital movement in the first half of 2016 in the United States, and was an active voice leading up to the Presidential election that November. As noted by its founders, disabled people are America’s (and the world’s) largest minority group, but a group whose voice often goes unheard in politics, even on topics which directly affect them such as healthcare, and social services. From its origin as a hashtag on Twitter, it became a movement that spread across the internet and invited disabled voters to participate in grassroots discourse about how they could become more involved in politics and the electoral process. As the disabled community online crosses continental borders, it was only natural that once the General Election was announced on the 18th of April, #CripTheVoteUK soon followed.

It seems incredulous that a movement is necessary to point out where access improvements are needed, but that is part of what Crip The Vote does. This ranges from ensuring polling stations have full disabled access, to pressuring political parties to release their manifestos in all possible formats including BSL and SSE (Signed Supported English), large print, braille, and simplified English. The latter is thankfully becoming more common since Mencap’s campaign to include people with learning disabilities in politics. Some parties fare better than others at inclusion- the Conservative Party released their BSL manifesto too late for postal voters to see it this year.

Inevitably, a large part of the movement is based on drawing attention to parties’ policies which affect the disabled community, and urging people to vote accordingly. For that reason,  many of those participating in #CripTheVoteUK are committed to ousting the Tories who have caused unrelenting misery for disabled people in the UK since 2010 – be it from increasingly unfair ATOS or Maximus assessments, cuts to Legal Aid, NHS service cuts, cuts to disability benefits – disabled people have borne the brunt of the cuts made to keep our economy afloat, while the richest pay minimal tax and hide their money in offshore accounts. (By contrast, Jeremy Corbyn has repeatedly voted against benefit cuts, against the bedroom tax, and for increasing benefits in line with inflation – oh, and making millionaires pay their taxes!) Disabled people in the UK are literally dying from starvation, illnesses worsened by stress and poverty, even suicide after benefit errors, going without care hours when reclassified as being in less need, even being denied the wheelchairs that would help them engage in the community by the NHS who have been told to save money by tightening the eligibility criteria. We are being shat on from all sides, and we are sick of it. That is why Crip The Vote is so important; it gives us some agency back.

It’s hard to write a vaguely objective piece when it directly affects you so much, which is why somewhere in the last paragraph I dropped the formality. I’m not a journalist, I’m a blogger at most, but one who hopes that what they write might one day make a difference. So I’m starting here:
Abled Britons, non-disabled citizens, please read this warning. A vote for the Tories is a gamble, a bet that during a Tory government neither you nor anyone in your close family will become sick or disabled. As long as you remain in a stable job with a good wage, as long as your house remains standing, they have your interests at heart. Once the bricks start crumbling, once you get weaker, once you need to leave that good job to look after a spouse or child, they will not help you. They will punish you for a situation that was not your fault, make you feel as if just surviving another day is political dissent. At times the only thing that has kept me alive is knowing that I do not want to become another statistic, have my death called a “tragedy” by politicians who voted for me to have a harder life. I know my own experience is mirrored by many of my disabled comrades, and I also know it doesn’t have to be like this. This is why we are Cripping The Vote.

(If you want to vote tactically in your constituency to give your local Tory candidate less of a chance, you can check who you should be voting for on this handy website.)

 

My wheelchair is not a prison!

12 Sunday Mar 2017

Posted by in Blog, Disability

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Since becoming visibly disabled in 2013, after several years in the invisible camp, I have been anxious about seeing people I used to know, and meeting new people. Not just the inevitable “what happened?” (answer: “technically nothing, I was born with this”), but the misguided sympathy I now get for being a wheelchair user. Non-disabled people tend to see the wheelchair as The Worst Thing That Could Ever Happen to someone – look at the terminology used: wheelchair-bound; stuck in a chair; confined to a wheelchair…. but they don’t think of the alternative. Before I had my electric wheelchair, I would leave the house once or twice a week, as it caused me that much pain to walk and the knock on effects weren’t worth it. Now, as long as I’m not in a bad fatigue phase, and can get what passes for “dressed” enough, I can go out multiple days in a row with only minor consequences.  Without their wheelchairs, tens of thousands of people in this country would have no access to education, work, or a life outside of their homes.
The futon is my prison, and the wheelchair is my freedom and my best friend.
I will admit to getting a bit (extra) depressed from time to time because I miss being able to do the things I used to love – dancing, climbing, scrambling, hiking (basically anything involving going up mountains), kayaking – but what people often fail to understand is that even if I didn’t need my wheelchair, or the crutches I sometimes use, I wouldn’t be able to do these things anymore anyway. The wheelchair is not the symptom of my condition or my limitations, it is the thing that helps me continue to do what I have left. So don’t aim your sympathy at my wheelchair -maybe channel it into anger at the lack of wheelchair access I and other disabled people face instead!

(Lack of) Housing progress.

20 Monday Feb 2017

Posted by in Disability, Housing, Mental Health

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Just over two weeks ago I posted a tweet asking for help finding accessible rental accommodation in London. It was retweeted over 240 times, and garnered no replies.
This isn’t a damning verdict of community spirit – it’s a damning indictment of the lack of actually accessible properties on the rental market, and subsequently why, 6 weeks after beginning my housing search due to impending eviction, I have made exactly zero progress.

In terms of looking for private market property, I have used every website I can find. First off, I tried the site which has ostensibly taken over for the Accessible Housing Register, which currently lists a grand total of ZERO accessible properties available to rent inn the UK. So, onto the non-specialist sites. Disappointingly, NONE of them have any filters for accessibility – even dssmove.co.uk, which lists only properties which accept housing benefit – which means I have to search for listings mentioning “wheelchair” and see what comes up (usually not much). (Searching  for “accessible” will bring up red herrings as it is often used in context of local transport.)  Another method is to look for buildings with lifts, or ground floor flats only, but again there is no guarantee that this means they are wheelchair accessible. I have sent a multitude of messages to property agents about places on the market – checking either DSS allowance for those which are accessible, or wheelchair access for those which do accept DSS, or both – and the few replies I have had so far have been negative. I have, however, been signed up to numerous unsolicited mailing lists.

On the non-private rental side of things, progress has stalled. The meeting with my key worker at the Personality Disorder service, in which she promised to put me in touch with the department’s social worker to help me navigate the council, was over a month ago and since then I’ve heard nothing either by phone or post. I went to the middle-of-nowhere hell that is Enfield Council’s housing department and gave them my doctor’s note, so hopefully they won’t discard my application in the meantime. My other option is a specialist Housing Association. The only one I’ve contacted and heard back from is Habinteg- I was accepted onto their waiting list last year, when my housing situation was simply “undesirable” and not “6 weeks away from eviction deadline”. It took me a while to build up the nerve to contact them, by phone, and I was told to email them instead. That took me over a week, the anxiety of response made worse by the disinterested person on the other end of the phone. Then I got this back:

habintegreply

[Good Morning,
Thank you for your email.
As stated in our Lettings Policy, we are unable to state accurately when we shall be able to help you, but I do assure you that your application will be given full consideration when suitable vacancies occur in the future.
Any information provided to support your application will help us to determine your priority of need in terms of housing, as we allocate properties on the basis of priority of  need, applicants do not move up the list,  and we are not able to guarantee to be able to offer properties to all applicants that have been added to our listings.
Regards,]

No contact name given, not even a mention of my name. I am pretty sure I was given a template response. I’m not even sure anyone read my original email stating I was facing an eviction deadline. After another few days of fretting, I’ve sent a copy of the eviction notice but I don’t expect more than another pithy email possibly telling me that it was insufficient evidence. I’m trying not to get utterly depressed at the probable loss of what was, at the start of this anxious period of my anxious life, my best hope at being suitably housed.

Update 21/02 – I have received an email from Habinteg informing me that my emails and evidence have now been forwarded to a Housing Officer. Whether or not this is so they can tell me the same thing, I’m not sure.

As the days count down to the provisional deadline of March 31st, my mental health is piping up again. Last night I had the first seizure I’ve suffered this year, and the first in at least a few months. I’ve begun dreading the evenings and nights again, in case of the Sudden Desperate Sads which lead easily to desperation, dissociation, or worse. I’m waking up anxious, staying anxious, until it turns to depression as the day wears on. I know this is when I should be calling the PD service key worker, but the lack of contact I’ve had from them since the Crisis Week means I’m incredibly anxious about doing so.