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Accessible homes need to be part of this country's housing strategy
The long-term strategy for housing needs to break open the silos between housing, health and social care funding, writes Christina McGill, director of social impact and external affairs at Habinteg housing association
Christina McGill is director of social impact & external affairs at Habinteg
The upcoming long-term strategy for housing must address the shortage of accessible homes if is to be effective.
Seeking to build 1.5 million homes is a bold ambition and serves the government’s five missions, contributing as it will to economic growth, energy efficiency, greater opportunities for all and safer and healthier communities. But for disabled and older people, merely delivering on numbers is not bold enough.
The lack of accessible housing increases disadvantage and risk to people who face a daily assault course of physical and attitudinal barriers. It limits independence, damages health and well-being, stifles talent and aspirations and drives demand for NHS and social care resources.
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To properly address this deficit, the long-term strategy for housing needs to break open the silos between housing, health and social care funding. Leaders and planners must be empowered to act on the seemingly obvious – far better to invest in preventative standards than to continually play catch-up with ever-declining funds.
Such strategic collaboration between departments, with Treasury support, would help turn the tide from firefighting to positive intervention.
The national strategy must set clear requirements for new homes to be at least accessible and adaptable.
Homes built to the current baseline standard are not good enough. Although called “visitable”, they can be extremely limiting for disabled and older people to live in or visit. They are also much more expensive to adapt when required, creating unnecessary pressure on local authority finances in the form of adaptations and Disabled Facilities Grants.
“Homes built to the current baseline standard are not good enough. Although called ‘visitable’, they can be extremely limiting for disabled and older people to live in or visit”
Government figures commissioned in 2015 and updated for inflation show that a three-bedroom semi built to the accessible and adaptable M4(2) standard costs just £644 more in build costs than a less accessible M4(1) home – a tiny addition to overall costs.
We need to see the implementation timetable for establishing M4(2) as the new regulatory baseline set out in the long-term strategy for housing. To achieve this, it’s imperative that ministers give the green light to the final consultation needed to plan transitional arrangements. The erstwhile Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee called for this in its Disabled people in the housing sector report. Habinteg and campaigners urge ministers to take note and take action.
It’s critical to recognise that the benefits of meeting disabled people’s housing needs help everyone.
Habinteg’s recent report, Living not existing: The economic & social value of wheelchair user homes, demonstrates what the Treasury needs to consider. For a working-age wheelchair user, the benefit of living in a wheelchair-user home can be valued at around £94,000 over a 10-year period and up to £100,000 for an older-age household.
These figures represent the reduced costs of NHS care, lower demand for domiciliary care (local authorities being the big winners in this respect) and reduced reliance on benefits, along with the tax and national insurance generated when disabled people and their families are able to take up or increase paid work.
English Housing Survey data shows that around 400,000 wheelchair users are living in homes that are neither designed for nor adapted to their needs. If just a quarter of them require one hour of care per day to support them at home, that equates to a bill of almost £20m over the course of a year. That alone could pay the ‘additional’ build costs for 31,000 three-bedroom semi-detached accessible and adaptable M4(2) homes per year.
“Disabled and older people must be involved, from informing housing strategy to local plans and individual scheme design”
Prioritising accessible homes within the long-term strategy is about more than just the baseline standard itself.
We’d need to see planning teams adequately trained to implement a universal M4(2) standard, while the Planning Inspectorate should reject any local plan that does not include a policy for M4(3) wheelchair-user homes. Homes England should require 10% of funded developments to be wheelchair accessible and ensure that no public money is spent on homes that are not accessible and adaptable M4(2) as a minimum.
We need robust data-collation on the accessibility of all homes. Regular reporting through the English Housing Survey and local-plan delivery reports is crucial to understanding the accessible homes needed in different tenures, sizes and provision type.
Disabled and older people must be involved, from informing housing strategy to local plans and individual scheme design. Good design – both of places and processes – begins with understanding the barriers that need to be addressed, so talk to the people that experience them.
The housing crisis presents a vast array of challenges, not least that too many people are making do in inaccessible places or ageing in family homes that might better meet the needs of others.
If the government is serious about a strategy fit for the long term, it is essential that it acknowledges and nurtures the widespread benefits that accessibility and adaptability would bring.
Breaking open the departmental silos could be the most powerful strategic move of all.
Christina McGill, director of social impact and external affairs, Habinteg
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