Dis Life: Housing must be accessible, safe, and affordable
I’m knackered. Having thought I’d found my dream rental home last year in the form of an overpriced, not properly accessible bungalow with an inaccessible bathroom, and having had conversations with the landlord about long-term letting because finding properties even of this relatively shoddy calibre and eye-watering rental price point is next to impossible, it now turns out he’s selling up.
As part of my frantic scouting round for a) an available property and b) one I can actually access as a Disabled person, I’ve also discovered that only 5% of properties are affordable with housing benefit. Given that 17% of people in the UK live in social housing, and many, many more need to use housing benefit to pay, at least in part, for social sector housing – how is this working out? My fingers are in a tangle from having tried to do the sums on them. It doesn’t add up.
Housing benefit has been frozen for several years – and even when it was going up, it was still out of whack with commercial rents. Rents have skyrocketed beyond both wages and benefits. Where exactly are people supposed to live? A dear friend of mine recently lost a close friend, a severely disabled friend, in the US, who had been forced to live in her vehicle. How has this state of affairs been allowed to happen? How is it allowed to become a global issue? Housing is the most basic of the Maslowian heirarchy of needs.
I’m lucky. I’ve found somewhere (it’s not fully accessible). But it was indeed luck. It wasn’t because these places are readily available. The advice I was being given by housing support services was to stay put and force a legal process to drag things out as long as possible to give myself the maximum amount of time to find a property. That’s an absurd and immensely stressful state of affairs to be in. Once forced out, the option for many of us is inaccessible temporary accommodation. Think wheelchairs and stairs. Think neurodivergence and crowded, noisy B&Bs. Emergency accommodation is often not remotely suitable for our needs. Disabled people face challenges from all directions – a threat to the very roofs over our heads is one we should never have to deal with. Housing must, without any wiggle room, be accessible, safe, and affordable. Why are we even needing to have this conversation?
Flying high?
Some good news this week – as it turns out the Disability Rights UK Rights On Flights campaign with TV presenter and author Sophie Morgan has yielded pre-packed, pre-portioned airline meal fruit. The Government has committed to improving air travel for Disabled people, including unlimited compensation for damage to our vital mobility aids. It has pledged, when Parliamentary time allows, to change the laws in our favour. Now we’ve just got to get it to consider supporting other airline reasonable adjustments for Disabled people who fly, such as supplying oxygen for people with respiratory conditions – something that was inexplicably withdrawn during the pandemic, and implementing stronger legislation for similar standards for other modes of transport (‘m looking at bus and rail, especially).
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Just not cricket
The Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket has released a report highlighting glaring inequalities in terms of how People of Colour and women are treated. In essence, this quintessentially English game, according to the report’s findings, is racist and sexist AF. It’s curious that a Commission set up solely for the promotion of equity in the sport has completely omitted any findings about disability – because it didn’t look for them. There is one mention of ‘disability’ in the whole report, and that’s in relation to it being a ‘protected characteristic’ – it’s there to describe what those mean, not to be reported about in and of itself. Given cricket has an older audience, there are plenty of fans who are Disabled. And on the pitch, there may well be, or should be, people with disabilities playing the game (top of my head, neurodivergence shouldn’t be seen as a barrier to playing at international level unless the culture around it doesn’t allow for it – ie cricket is ableist, which, given how sexist and racist the report finds it is, is pretty likely to be a possibility).
The report isn’t offered in alternative formats either. And it’s hard to read in the PDF format it’s presented in. So well done ICEC. I’m seeing you out for a duck on accessibility. Personal experience at my local ground suggests that reasonable adjustments aren’t exactly forthcoming. I was banned from parking in the usual, accessible spots recently on a match day, and cited ‘health and safety’ – with no consideration for my health and safety as a Disabled person, and no adjustments offered. I was expected to park a ten minute limp away. Something I can’t manage. Nobody has given Disabled access much thought at this household-name ground. It’s offputting, no matter how much I love the thunk of leather on willow, to be made to feel this unwelcome. It’s giving me both the ump and the ire. A little thought about parity of access for Disabled people would go a long way, and increase bums on seats, to boot.
Sign of the times
Deaf actress and Strictly winner Rose Ayling-Ellis is calling for parents and guardians of Deaf kids to be given free British Sign Language (BSL) lessons. As she points out: “It’s a shame that you have to pay to communicate with your own child”. Too right.
Sign language courses cost a small fortune (we’re talking low thousands to get to fluency), and while you can pick up spoken languages cheaply with books and apps, it’s much harder to access BSL learning on the fly through those methods. In fact, since BSL was recognised in law as an official language last year, it’s the only British language not actively regularly taught in British schools now – English and Welsh are compulsory subjects in their respective countries, and Gaelic is an option in some Scottish schools.
The Government has announced that BSL could soon become a GCSE subject, bringing it closer to being within reach for younger people to learn – provided schools are willing to provide it. It is currently running a consultation on the content of a potential exam. But much more support is needed for adults to be able to learn. I tend to default to voice typing into my phone for speed around my Deaf friends, and then texting them. It’s laborious and lacks the fluency of signed conversation, and frankly makes me feel like a bit of an ignorant dick. I would love to be able to sign, but the cost of learning is a major barrier.
The beauty of signing is its universality – it works for the Deaf community, but also for people who use spoken languages. We all sign here and there – think of when we go on holiday and don’t know the lingo, or when we want a cuppa from the end of the garden. How much more useful to be able to sign, with the right signs, fluently? How much easier would it be to sign private messages in meetings without disturbing speakers, or to speak at distance to someone, for example, at a crowded bar? It has the potential to be adopted by many more of us as a universal inclusive language.
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