Luis Canto E Castro: The struggle to find an accessible home | #ForAccessibleHomes News

Luis Canto E Castro, disability rights advocate and member of Habinteg Housing Association’s Insight Group, said that he and his partner looked at 18 different properties before they found one that met their criteria.

" The lack of planning for wheelchair-user homes has real-life consequences for disabled people. When my partner and I were looking for a home, we looked at 18 different properties before we found one that met our criteria: a bungalow with space for adaptations.

Before I adapted my home, my in-home care service refused to lift my wheelchair over external thresholds and our bathroom shower tray due to it being a health and safety risk, so I couldn’t have a shower or go out without the assistance of my family.

This made personal care more difficult and had a detrimental impact on my career, as I had to change in-person appointments to online ones, which had financial consequences for the company I worked for.

As my family and I were not eligible for the Disabled Facilities Grant, we paid for the adaptations ourselves, to the tune of around £24,000, by taking out a bank loan. Had we been able to buy a wheelchair-user home from the outset we could have avoided the stress and worry that came with the cost of major adaptations. A wheelchair-user home would have met my access requirements as well as those of future generations of disabled households.

People I know have had to relocate miles away from their community and support network just to get a home that meets only some of their accessibility requirements. Can we justify doing this to disabled people?"