A woman in a wheelchair was left "dragging herself upstairs using her hands" after being put in an upstairs council flat without a lift. This meant she could not get in and out, even in the event of a fire.
She has been awarded more than £9,000 in compensation after a North London council’s delay in getting her a new home. She says the four-year-long ordeal has had a significant impact on her mental health, reports My London.
Brent Council was forced to pay the woman, referred to as ‘Miss X’, £9,200 after the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) investigated her complaint. The report states the council "did not make efforts to try and ensure a vulnerable disabled person was offered alternative accommodation to suit her needs".
In 2017 Miss X complained that the council had left her "effectively homeless" as she could not get into the property via the stairs using her wheelchair. She was forced to drag herself up using her hands, which caused her a great deal of pain.
Once inside, she could not use all the rooms or escape in the event of a fire. The complaint was upheld by the LGO after Brent Council confirmed it couldn’t adapt the property for her needs. It was required to urgently find suitable accommodation and pay Miss X £2,000.
Miss X was forced to complain again in June 2021 as, since the original LGO ruling, she had not received any suitable offers for housing and could not make bids herself as there were no properties that were appropriate for wheelchair users.
Miss X said the delay caused her "extreme distress and suffering" and claimed she sometimes slept in her car, used her benefits to pay for other accommodation, or stayed at her friends or family's home. However, the investigator didn’t see sufficient evidence to conclude that she paid for somewhere else to stay or that she slept in her car.
The council didn’t respond to the complaint until October 2021, it stated that "very few wheelchair accessible properties were available". It offered to pay Miss X £5,600, however, she didn’t feel the council had addressed the mental and emotional impact on her. She claimed her circumstances meant she "could not pursue her life plans such as having relationships or starting a family" during the four years.
The investigator concluded that they "do not consider that this is an adequate remedy" and ordered it to increase the offer by nearly £4,000. The council eventually offered Miss X a new property in September 2021 that it said could be made wheelchair accessible, which she accepted.
Cabinet Member for Housing, Homelessness and Renters’ Security, Cllr Promise Knight, said: "We apologise unreservedly to Miss X for the distress and suffering that being housed in unsuitable accommodation for four years has had on her life. The poor handling of her case led to her facing appalling circumstances. She should never have had to endure what she went through under council care."
She added: "We have agreed to compensate Miss X for our failure in her case and for every month that she spent in a property that did not meet her housing needs as a resident dependent upon wheelchair accessibility. We have now put measures in place to ensure that band A applicants’ cases are reviewed every six months. Our priority is to safeguard the tenants in our care and meet their housing needs as best we can."
