🚨End the split-funded New Arrangement of the grant between housing assocs & central govt.
The Issue
Thousands of Disabled people are being left without the support they need because of changes to funding arrangements namely the split-funded New Arrangement of the grant; the new process for the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) for tenants in the housing associations that took control of the old council housing when it was sold off to the housing associations & privatised. Citizens Advice told us the New arrangement was a part of the Deal. The DFG provides funding to ensure Disabled people can make housing adjustments like widening doors, installing ramps, and making adjustments to bathrooms.
This detrimental policy has caused me immense distress & has left a lasting mark on my mind. While in a feasible property, my housing association refused to provide me multiple times with the necessary wet room and wheelchair adaptations recommended there under this arrangement. My housing kept up a very strict, very very nasty resistance to doing the recommended wet room & adaptations in the feasible house where I used to live, not even replacing bath there with better bath so I could use the bathlift I'd been given by OT. For 5.5 Years at that feasible house, I couldn't use the bathlift I'd been given. It was outrageous.
I have even had to regularly travel to swimming pools & a day centre just to have a shower - that's awful especially for a woman - I washed my hair & showered there instead for four and a half years while at that feasible house of ForHousing's AND at two other properties of theirs since - one an extra care flat and at current bungalow where the shower wasn't done right for me at these also. Yet next door neighbour in same kind of house, same housing assoc had a wet room installed - the system results in a lottery for Disabled people who have no confidence the adaptations they need will be funded.
Under the split-funded New Arrangement, I have been moved property so far 5 times in 9 years (one was furnished) and waiting to move again, and wasn’t helped even when in a feasible property to which ForHousing had moved me and my fiance - to a house out of my medical band.
The split-funded New Arrangement caused me to have TO LIVE APART FROM MY PARTNER FOR 3 YEARS 8 MONTHS AND FAR OUT for the wet room with NOT all my adaptations done - the system is clearly not working. All the trouble harmed our relationship. I really struggled to write a formal complaint alone, two legal aid solicitors kept passing the job to me to do which I couldn't do & failed us very terribly. I had to keep complaining five times thru the formal complaint. Only then did my housing help with property close to my partner, however I was moved to bungalow too small - they didn't give me the recommended size bedroom I need for my hospital bed & didn't do the shower right Again - it made/ making me a lot worse and caused eight falls. ForHousing refused recommended pump for in 2019 and AGAIN in 2024. I have had to get private comm care solicitor.
I had to travel to shower instead at the disabled shower at a leisure centre & a day centre after they moved me to current bungalow that is too small. I showered instead there for around 6 months in 2024. Again in 2006 I am having to keep returning to the leisure centre to use the disabled shower, or have to get taxis to the accessible hairdressers in Walkden to get my hair washed.
I had to complain many multiple times instead, even though I lived in a feasible house. Then only some of my adaptations have been done and is no room for my partner to live where ForHousing moved me and other issues with the property. For example wet room floor very slippery - again ForHousing refusing repeatedly to change it even when recommended to by the OT repeatedly.
More details:
My MP doesn't support my petition. He doesn't support to end the split-funded New Arrangement of the grant and feels my petition "misleading in ... the legal and funding position". He supports housing associations funding the major adaptations, despite acknowledging our ordeal, that he describes merely as a "challenging experience with ForHousing" "deeply frustrating" - this is a gross understatement. My partner & I have been greatly distressed and highly tormented. I am being moved multiple times & made/making me a lot worse😂😂
After it forced me out my home, my partner got bedroom tax as he remained at feasible house, not wanting to move either & given this unfair tax for five and a half years so far.
For tenants who qualify for 100% funding, the New Arrangement of the grant means that, unlike in the past, central Government only provide 50% of the funding, with housing associations having to fund the rest.
The split-funded New Arrangement and self-serving housing staff who don't deviate from policy, has created a crisis greatly distressing to disabled tenants in Feasible houses. Instead of doing the major adaptations they need, the New Arrangement creates a devastating GRIDLOCK for tenants who want to stay in feasible houses. The housing assoc keeps refusing to do the recommended work & only want the tenant to move.
No "reasonable adjustment" was made for me at that feasible house multiple times & even after my former MP complained too repeatedly to ForHousing. I suffered victimisation then & again now re recommended pump.
Another gross failure was ForHousing who kept refusing multiple times to do the work/reasonable adjustment, they didn't pass me on to Salford council to arrange the full grant instead at that house. I couldn't take it anymore. It all forced me out of my home & away from my partner who has a sickness also, we couldn't sort it. We were not treated favourably at that house. Favourable treatment is part of the Equality Act. Also the service was very poor from two legal aid solicitors who failed us. It was extremely terrible. I know another two housing assocs (formerly council) that didn't pass tenants on to the council to sort the full DFG funding instead by the council.
No one passed us on to the council during our ordeal at the feasible house. No one told us the council could fund it in full instead. I found out this myself many years later (2026) thru emailing repeatedly my MP Michael Wheeler.
ForHousing stated adaptations should be done within 9 months, but I was recommended a wet room in 2015 and instead after 5 distressing years of ForHousing’s resistance, I had to sort instead Two temporary places myself Far Out in 2020 which became Three due to a covid outbreak. I heard ForHousing have since removed the 9 month policy.
We found ForHousing please themselves what adaptations they do even if recommended many years ago.
My speech slowed by my meds & by fatigue. I had very reluctantly had to sort their care flat myself when covid started, then they moved me to a second careflat even when I objected to it & the multiple moves. I used to have an old bungalow with them before a hostile manager of theirs moved us to the 3bed house that was out of my medical band. Why did their manager move us there if it was wrong.
When MP wrote in 2025 for better drainage this too refused by hostile head manager. This manager had moved me to current bungalow then unfairly blamed me for the flooding in wet room, - their other bungalows nearby also complain of flooding in their wet rooms. This head manager, covering for a director, failed to pass me on to their adaptations manager or repairs team re the flooding & to correct flooring to the OT recommendations & for recommended pump for shower.
It was recommended by the OT I have "two bedrooms knocked in to one". However the bedroom in current bungalow is NOT two bedrooms knocked in one & is insufficient size for my hospital bed & I cannot move my wheelchair around bedroom. I even made another formal complaint re the pump that fell on deaf ears. Two ForHousing managers overruled the pump. Now, I am having to move Again for the sixth time with ForHousing for adaptations. I don't want any more places with ForHousing.
For years, disabled people like me have relied on central Government funding to make essential adaptations to our homes. These adaptations are crucial in ensuring our independence, safety, and overall well-being. But under the New arrangement the burden placed on housing associations is simply too great, and they end up blocking adaptations & wet rooms in feasible properties because of their own financial constraints and their hostile staff/managers refusing to deviate from policy causing a punishing ordeal & hugely gruelling type of misery.
Please join me in calling on the Government to End the New arrangement of the grant and to return to the former process of the DFG funding provided in full by central Government for tenants who qualify for 100%. To ensure all tenants wanting to remain in Feasible properties in these housing assocs have the chance to get the support they desperately need, to live full, independent lives.
53,824
The Issue
Thousands of Disabled people are being left without the support they need because of changes to funding arrangements namely the split-funded New Arrangement of the grant; the new process for the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) for tenants in the housing associations that took control of the old council housing when it was sold off to the housing associations & privatised. Citizens Advice told us the New arrangement was a part of the Deal. The DFG provides funding to ensure Disabled people can make housing adjustments like widening doors, installing ramps, and making adjustments to bathrooms.
This detrimental policy has caused me immense distress & has left a lasting mark on my mind. While in a feasible property, my housing association refused to provide me multiple times with the necessary wet room and wheelchair adaptations recommended there under this arrangement. My housing kept up a very strict, very very nasty resistance to doing the recommended wet room & adaptations in the feasible house where I used to live, not even replacing bath there with better bath so I could use the bathlift I'd been given by OT. For 5.5 Years at that feasible house, I couldn't use the bathlift I'd been given. It was outrageous.
I have even had to regularly travel to swimming pools & a day centre just to have a shower - that's awful especially for a woman - I washed my hair & showered there instead for four and a half years while at that feasible house of ForHousing's AND at two other properties of theirs since - one an extra care flat and at current bungalow where the shower wasn't done right for me at these also. Yet next door neighbour in same kind of house, same housing assoc had a wet room installed - the system results in a lottery for Disabled people who have no confidence the adaptations they need will be funded.
Under the split-funded New Arrangement, I have been moved property so far 5 times in 9 years (one was furnished) and waiting to move again, and wasn’t helped even when in a feasible property to which ForHousing had moved me and my fiance - to a house out of my medical band.
The split-funded New Arrangement caused me to have TO LIVE APART FROM MY PARTNER FOR 3 YEARS 8 MONTHS AND FAR OUT for the wet room with NOT all my adaptations done - the system is clearly not working. All the trouble harmed our relationship. I really struggled to write a formal complaint alone, two legal aid solicitors kept passing the job to me to do which I couldn't do & failed us very terribly. I had to keep complaining five times thru the formal complaint. Only then did my housing help with property close to my partner, however I was moved to bungalow too small - they didn't give me the recommended size bedroom I need for my hospital bed & didn't do the shower right Again - it made/ making me a lot worse and caused eight falls. ForHousing refused recommended pump for in 2019 and AGAIN in 2024. I have had to get private comm care solicitor.
I had to travel to shower instead at the disabled shower at a leisure centre & a day centre after they moved me to current bungalow that is too small. I showered instead there for around 6 months in 2024. Again in 2006 I am having to keep returning to the leisure centre to use the disabled shower, or have to get taxis to the accessible hairdressers in Walkden to get my hair washed.
I had to complain many multiple times instead, even though I lived in a feasible house. Then only some of my adaptations have been done and is no room for my partner to live where ForHousing moved me and other issues with the property. For example wet room floor very slippery - again ForHousing refusing repeatedly to change it even when recommended to by the OT repeatedly.
More details:
My MP doesn't support my petition. He doesn't support to end the split-funded New Arrangement of the grant and feels my petition "misleading in ... the legal and funding position". He supports housing associations funding the major adaptations, despite acknowledging our ordeal, that he describes merely as a "challenging experience with ForHousing" "deeply frustrating" - this is a gross understatement. My partner & I have been greatly distressed and highly tormented. I am being moved multiple times & made/making me a lot worse😂😂
After it forced me out my home, my partner got bedroom tax as he remained at feasible house, not wanting to move either & given this unfair tax for five and a half years so far.
For tenants who qualify for 100% funding, the New Arrangement of the grant means that, unlike in the past, central Government only provide 50% of the funding, with housing associations having to fund the rest.
The split-funded New Arrangement and self-serving housing staff who don't deviate from policy, has created a crisis greatly distressing to disabled tenants in Feasible houses. Instead of doing the major adaptations they need, the New Arrangement creates a devastating GRIDLOCK for tenants who want to stay in feasible houses. The housing assoc keeps refusing to do the recommended work & only want the tenant to move.
No "reasonable adjustment" was made for me at that feasible house multiple times & even after my former MP complained too repeatedly to ForHousing. I suffered victimisation then & again now re recommended pump.
Another gross failure was ForHousing who kept refusing multiple times to do the work/reasonable adjustment, they didn't pass me on to Salford council to arrange the full grant instead at that house. I couldn't take it anymore. It all forced me out of my home & away from my partner who has a sickness also, we couldn't sort it. We were not treated favourably at that house. Favourable treatment is part of the Equality Act. Also the service was very poor from two legal aid solicitors who failed us. It was extremely terrible. I know another two housing assocs (formerly council) that didn't pass tenants on to the council to sort the full DFG funding instead by the council.
No one passed us on to the council during our ordeal at the feasible house. No one told us the council could fund it in full instead. I found out this myself many years later (2026) thru emailing repeatedly my MP Michael Wheeler.
ForHousing stated adaptations should be done within 9 months, but I was recommended a wet room in 2015 and instead after 5 distressing years of ForHousing’s resistance, I had to sort instead Two temporary places myself Far Out in 2020 which became Three due to a covid outbreak. I heard ForHousing have since removed the 9 month policy.
We found ForHousing please themselves what adaptations they do even if recommended many years ago.
My speech slowed by my meds & by fatigue. I had very reluctantly had to sort their care flat myself when covid started, then they moved me to a second careflat even when I objected to it & the multiple moves. I used to have an old bungalow with them before a hostile manager of theirs moved us to the 3bed house that was out of my medical band. Why did their manager move us there if it was wrong.
When MP wrote in 2025 for better drainage this too refused by hostile head manager. This manager had moved me to current bungalow then unfairly blamed me for the flooding in wet room, - their other bungalows nearby also complain of flooding in their wet rooms. This head manager, covering for a director, failed to pass me on to their adaptations manager or repairs team re the flooding & to correct flooring to the OT recommendations & for recommended pump for shower.
It was recommended by the OT I have "two bedrooms knocked in to one". However the bedroom in current bungalow is NOT two bedrooms knocked in one & is insufficient size for my hospital bed & I cannot move my wheelchair around bedroom. I even made another formal complaint re the pump that fell on deaf ears. Two ForHousing managers overruled the pump. Now, I am having to move Again for the sixth time with ForHousing for adaptations. I don't want any more places with ForHousing.
For years, disabled people like me have relied on central Government funding to make essential adaptations to our homes. These adaptations are crucial in ensuring our independence, safety, and overall well-being. But under the New arrangement the burden placed on housing associations is simply too great, and they end up blocking adaptations & wet rooms in feasible properties because of their own financial constraints and their hostile staff/managers refusing to deviate from policy causing a punishing ordeal & hugely gruelling type of misery.
Please join me in calling on the Government to End the New arrangement of the grant and to return to the former process of the DFG funding provided in full by central Government for tenants who qualify for 100%. To ensure all tenants wanting to remain in Feasible properties in these housing assocs have the chance to get the support they desperately need, to live full, independent lives.
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Petition created on 28 June 2023