Housing for People with Learning Disabilities

So, what’s the problemDr Simon Duffy Centre for Welfare Reform Disability Sheffield & Shelter Conference

?

People are different

Hayley, a unique and

beautiful person, who also

had a disability

Good societies respect difference

2 Esdras 2:20-23

“Do right by the widow. Respect the vulnerable.

Give to the poor. Protect children who’ve lost their family.

Ensure people maintain their dignity. Heal the poorly, help the weak. Don’t laugh at disabled people.

Defend the impaired. Don’t hide away the blind.

Don’t exclude anyone from your community. Respect the dead.”

From the Havamal - Sayings of the Vikings

“The lame rides a horse the maimed drives the herd the deaf is brave in battle.

A man is better blind than buried.

A dead man is deft at nothing.”

1 Corinthians 4:7

“Who made you different from anyone else? What have you got that was not given to you? And if you have any gifts why boast as if you

gave them to yourself?”

But our society is still struggling to respect difference and disability

The factory in Sheffield

where Stainless Steel was first used.

The development of industry and factory working changed our society

radically

Some people were fitted into the factory system; others were sent to the Institution.

Lennox Castle Hospital, built in the

1920s, north of Glasgow

The factory system was rotten. It increased poverty

and inequality. It led to revolution, war and terror.

In Germany institutions were converted into the first death camps and about 200,000

people with disabilities were murdered.

Bodies being burned at the institution of

Hadamar in Germany

The end of World War II led to important changes to try and protect human rights and establish decent

welfare systems.

1945

2016

There have been lots of changes in the last 70 years - some good, some bad. Today

we have an extreme Government that has made big cuts in basic rights to

housing, support and income.

The big institutions are now closed. Instead people are now with their

families or in group homes. Although some people live

independently and some live in village communities or other kinds

of shared living.

3 things to remember…

1. Everyone has the right to be a citizen - living a full life as part of the community

2. Everyone can have a home of their own - living with people they want to

3. We need to act positively and we need to act together

FIND OUT MORE:

www.centreforwelfarereform.org

@CforWR @simonjduffy

https://www.facebook.com/centreforwelfarereform