So alongside the myth that supported housing gives tenure rights (where they are increasingly on periodic/shorthold tenancies), we’re gradually learning that adults with learning disabilities are being placed in insecure housing.
When we get it right people would be good long-term stable tenants. Reported below in Birmingham as well as in Coventry, we see the creeping switch so the power is not with the most vulnerable tenants, already more powerless.
Lancashire’s current ‘consultation’ on a new provider contract (see also post below) and strategy on supported housing expects some ‘high cost’ shared supported housing to be decanted into blocks of 6-12 supported housing flats. These might be a good option for some young more independent adults e.g. at or leaving college but not for the long-term care for high needs people.
The risks here of people least able to self-determine stuck with assistive technology in their ‘pods’, isolated in their flats or stuck in communal areas, and without the skills to assert their needs, put aside from the neighbourhood who in ordinary neighbourhood supported housing would mean some monitoring, without good tenancy rights even if they could assert them.
We need housing agencies to start to stand up for them and supported housing landlords to ensure after a reasonable trial that people have full tenancy rights which would mean a court would have to check out any eviction. But otherwise, we need any advocates including families to understand their tenancy rights and ensure they have the best secure tenure.
One wonders whether Cqcinspections.org shouldn’t be looking rather more closely at just how closely housing and care are tied together. Surely Lancashire’s proposal of moving people, as well as if people need less help they should be moved out of their supported housing is showing too close control over what should be the landlord’s normal separate decision – and if people are on disability benefits they should surely still be entitled to the higher rent allowance to continue to cover the higher support and services on supported tenancies? https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/scores-adults-learning-disabilities-coventry-16859155
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