Every month in this blog I like to reflect on something that has happened with work that reflects on using a wheelchair and wheelchair lifestyle. Sometimes these posts will be about what’s been happening with my social enterprise work and sometimes they will be more personal and what I’ve been up to personally.

This month is very personal.

For those reading this that don’t know me. I live in London, on the second floor of a four storey block. I’ve been living here in Battersea for the last eight years and I love it. It’s a comfortable space inside the flat which is age proof, wider doorways and plenty of space to turn around.

Locally I’ve got access to everything I need. Shops, cafes, restaurants, GP, parks and easy access into central London. Unusually for London, there are only 10 flats in this block so we have a tight knit community that is always happy to help.

I feel lucky to have found a place like this to live, especially knowing the difficulties that I have faced in the past finding accessible accommodation.

When choosing somewhere to live, I had intentionally picked somewhere that wasn’t ground floor because I wanted to be away from the road and people walking past my window.

Out of order

Living on the second floor doesn’t come without risk. Having a working lift is essential for me to fully enjoy home (getting upstairs) and enjoying life outside (getting downstairs).

Toward the end of July I got home one Thursday evening to find that the lift was out of order. This always gives me blurgh feeling. It happens occasionally and I know the process. Call the service management company to report it, they will be out with four hours to assess it and will fix it within 48 hours. While it should be fixed immediately, it’s something that I agreed to when I moved in.

Getting up to my flat and back down is not impossible without the lift, but it is incredibly difficult. Reversing downstairs in my wheelchair and climbing back up by bumming up the steps, shown in the videos below.

If the lift is out of order for two days and I have to do this once or twice then it’s not great but it is possible.

This time was different though. The lift wasn’t out of order for two days or two weeks. It was out of order for 28 days.

I’m going to be careful now. This could easily turn into a rant, which I won’t put you (or myself) through. Rather than dwell on the lift breaking down, I thought that this is a perfect opportunity to think about the broader topic of housing.

The whole situation got me thinking about what I want. Where do I want to live? Is London still the right place for me? But also for the disabled community looking for accessible housing, is it better to seek inclusion to non accessible structures or do we seek alternatives that can offer more access?

Places I’ve lived before

Although I’ve been lucky finding suitable accommodation following my injury, there have been a couple of instances where it has not worked out for me.

When I originally got discharged from hospital back in 2007, I couldn’t move into where I was previously living both because it was work housing and also was on the fourth floor of the building.

Without anywhere locally to live I was put into a ‘Young Disabled Unit’, which upon reflection, even the name is cringeworthy. The unit was a difficult place to transition to after leaving hospital. I was around 7 months post injury, where I had been living an active lifestyle in the Lake District, and now living in a care home where I was the youngest person by about 20 years.

Sure, the support there made it an easy transition as my first step leaving hospital but it really didn't help my understanding of what life using a wheelchair was going to be like.

I do think that in a way it helped me. Living in such a difficult environment when leaving hospital pushed me to try new things and think about how to set myself up for the future. So I joined a wheelchair basketball team and started learning to drive.

My first flat in London was so inaccessible that when I think about it now, it is comical. I found a ground floor flat online and when I came down to visit it, found that there were still two steps to the entrance. The letting agent assured me that he could put a ramp in which I was happy with.

The ramp he put in was in fact a piece of wood that just covered the two steps, making it incredibly steep. I managed to figure out a ridiculous solution to get up the ramp. That involved getting up a bit of speed, putting my hand through the letterbox to hold myself in place, getting the key into the door, rolling back with the door to pull it open and finally pushing myself inside. A ridiculous solution.

Holding people accountable

Ensuring that housing providers are held accountable for providing high quality services is essential for everyone, arguably more important for disabled people.

Over the month that the lift in my building was out of action, there was little done to ensure that I was supported and the lift was fixed in a timely manner. Despite chasing them, nothing happened.4

Most surprisingly was how little support there is out there. With the introduction of the Social Housing Bill just one month earlier, I was expecting to be able to use that or at least find organisations that could support. But there was nothing.

The Housing Ombudsman and Regulator of Social Housing could potentially both get involved, but not as an immediate solution.

What does the future look like?

When it comes to housing, there are lots of good and bad examples. But what could the future look like for accessible housing? It is after all something that is fundamental to living a happy and healthy life.

While we need to ensure that the whole system is adequately regulated, it’s also important to think outside the box and what other solutions could provide a comfortable living space.

The lift breaking down prompted me to start thinking about what I wanted and needed from a home, where I wanted to live and alternative solutions.

If we start to think beyond bricks and mortar then modular housing could be an option. Already used in London, modular housing can easily be build to specification and easily installed in any location.

If you’re thinking about living in a rural location, there are options for smaller accommodation such as Omnipods and Cabins which were designed by a wheelchair user. This idea that started from lived experience could be an alternative for people who don’t require as much space, or are looking for an accessible holiday home.

Update: after publishing my blog, I came across a new report published by the housing charity Habinteg, Living not existing: The economic & social value of wheelchair user homes, for which they commissioned the London School of Economics to undertake research into the social and economic value into wheelchair user homes.