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Letters to the Housing Director. 21 January 2002 Housing Director Manchester Housing, PO Box 531, Town Hall Extension, M60 2JX. Dear Mr Rumbelow, Last week disabled people had to occupy your Housing Office because you continually fail to provide one of the most basic human rights i.e. accessible housing to disabled people in your area. Disabled people should not be forced into taking direct action, just to have their basic human rights met. Pay attention to disabled people now and work out an action plan to re-house thousands of disabled citizens who are waiting for safe and accessible homes. The people who were in your office have a lifetime of experience of access needs. Use their knowledge and start to provide equal rights to accessible housing in your area. It is a right and it is your duty to provide it. It is a must that you provide it now. Disabled people around the country are watching your response to this action and will react accordingly. Yours sincerely Lindsay Carter Dear Sir, I have some suggestions for the housing plan - based on my 3 years working for a local authority housing dept and 7 years working for Shelter as a housing adviser. The way that housing depts operate and the financing of adaptations and new build is not at all straightforward. I am sure that others will be able to add to this, from personal experience, too.
We hope this is useful to Clair and the other Danners in Manchester. Good luck on Tuesday. Lucy and Dorothy - 3rd February 2002 CHANGING PERSPECTIVES 21st January 2002 Dear Steve Re :- Clair Lewiss Meeting with Director for Housing I am writing in support of Clair Lewis being re-housed in a Council Owned accessible flat. Please remember that accessible flats are more than just being wheelchair accessible. What the council has failed to understand is that the flats which Clair has been offered HAVE NOT BEEN in SAFE environments.. Clair and Molly needs to feel both physically and emotionally safe. In addition accessible flats means being near facilitates (in particular within wheeling / walking distance) which Molly and Clair can use without being totally dependent on taxis. I hope you will take this opportunity to really find out what an accessible flat means from the perspective of Disabled People. I expect to hear within 28 days that Clair has been offered a wheelchair accessible flat in a safe environment, near local facilities which includes being near to Mollys School. I look forward to Clairs home warming party in her new flat within 28 days. FREE OUR PEOPLE NOW! Yours sincerely Simone Aspis (Changing Perspectives Director, DAN and People 1st Member and Green Partys Disability Spokesperson) Mr Rumbelow, There are many things I could say to you right now, but I suspect you'll have so many messages to read that say very similar things anyway, so I'll keep this short. Since I don't know you, I can only presume your actions are down to ignorance, for I truly believe all human beings should be given the access and respect they need. I am sure you'd agree with me here, yet you didn't fulfil those obligations, placed on you as an employee of Manchester City Council. I assume it was ignorance that led you to believing Clair Lewis and her supporters were wrong, and for behaving with such disrespect towards us. I also assume you did not realise that people would go through physical and mental pain, often excruciating, as a result of the court's decision to ban our personal assistants and British Sign Language/English interpreters from entering the building. In order to understand these issues, you need to listen to what you are being told by the people you purport to serve. Think about it, everything happens for a reason.... if people weren't unhappy with your services, would they bother to go to such lengths to gain your attention? We have a right to speak out for ourselves, and the right to take direct action in order to achieve this. We were denied our basic access requirements in the process of taking such action, and this was a serious breach of our human rights that I never thought was possible. I sincerely hope you will learn from this and use the experience positively in the future to ensure that the thousands of disabled adults and children in your borough are allowed to live as they choose. I also hope you will listen to Clair Lewis and give her an accessible house, and one that Clair herself feels is suitable, as soon as you can. We won't give up until you do. Jen Dodds Deaf Protestor - 3rd February 2002 Deafpower@tinyworld.co.uk Letters to the Manchester Evening News. Dear Sir, I was going to start this letter with the words, it beggars belief that a wheelchair user could be offered a flat with an upstairs bathroom, but then I remembered, the landlord concerned is Manchester City Councils Housing Department. What did they think the disabled woman would do? Levitate? If my own experience with them is anything to go by, the Department has to count as one of the most incompetent in Britain. For work reasons, I applied for a housing transfer from Liverpool to Manchester via the North British Housing Association some 2 years ago. Dealing with the housing association was bad enough but when the City Council got involved, a difficult situation became almost impossible. I dont blame the clerks and administrators either at the NBHA or the City Council, the buck has to stop with senior managers and politicians. I wish the protestors well and hope they force the City Council to comply with their obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act. Yours faithfully, Tom Walker - 3rd February 2002 |