The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and the disabled person interviewed
East London Newham council has left a disabled person pushed into homelessness with significant physical access needs in a second floor flat without a lift for over two years. Appallingly, despite explaining that their worsening condition means they need to start using a wheelchair, the council has refused to move them to somewhere with wheelchair access. It has refused to do so citing grounds of a lack of sufficient medical evidence.
After repeated attempts to engage with the council and its continuing failure to act, the disabled individual approached the Canary with their story. However, they have asked to remain anonymous, feeling that it’s a “scary time to be a disabled homeless person”. Notably, they expressed how they were “terrified” the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the council in question might weaponise the information contained in the article against them to deny benefits and suitable accommodation.
For reader accessibility and to protect the individual’s identity, the following article will refer to them as ‘Rea’.
Newham Council: disabled people pushed into homelessness – not its problem
Rea is a non-binary Autistic and disabled person living with multiple debilitating health conditions. In recent years, they’ve had two surgeries on their lower spine for significant sciatica pain due to two slipped discs. Rea explained how they’d had to have the second surgery due to an abusive ex causing her disc to prolapse after the first surgery.
While Rea already lived with it, the surgeries have also worsened their facet joint arthritis. Rea detailed how all this has had:
other effects on other organs too like digestive tract and bladder.
Alongside this, Rea lives with severe depression, anxiety, C-PTSD, and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Currently, their doctor is also investigating a potential heart condition. Rea explained how heart problems run in their family, and they feel that the “stress of the last 2.5 years” had potentially triggered these heart issues for them.
And notably, when Rea speaks of the past two and half years – what they are specifically referring to is their treatment at the hands of Newham Council.
In August 2022, Rea – with their ageing dog – found themselves homeless. Soaring rent prices made the property Rea and two former friends were living in unaffordable. Their two “ex friends” moved countries. But it left Rea with nowhere to go. They told the Canary how it was then that they first approached the East London council for help.
However, right from the start, the local authority was dismissive of their access needs. They put them up on the 8th floor of a hotel. But, when their dog “had an accident” in the room (peed on the floor), the hotel decided to kick them out:
without warning or empathy, in their words ‘the carpet is ruined and we need to replace it’.
After this, Newham Council actively abandoned them:
Newham refused to move me anywhere else and left me to fend for myself.
The council’s refusal to house Rea pushed them into homelessness once more. Rea returned to sofa surfing, and eventually, a friend helped them to buy a “shoddy car to live in”. Of course, this was enormously detrimental to their health and unsafe for Rea and their canine companion. Rea told the Canary how they had:
lived in that car for about a month, during the late autumn early winter time. This was bad for both of us, me and my dog. As a disabled and mentally ill person this was only the beginning of the nightmare I was to endure for the next few years.
Consequently, this led to Rea having to make a tragic and traumatic choice about their long-standing friend. It was one that has only heightened their isolation and exacerbated their mental health since:
It got colder and my dog started suffering. I had to make the very difficult decision to put my dog to sleep as homelessness was not good for her as she was 15 and living in a car was not fair for her.
That broke something in me, and I’ll never fully recover from losing her.
Temporary accommodation: inaccessible and not fit for purpose
When they next approached the council – now without a pet – it placed them in “interim accommodation” at a local hotel. Rea explained how this place was “awful and not safe”.
The council then temporarily moved Rea to another place with no private toilet or shower over a weekend, before moving them into their current temporary accommodation.
There, it located Rea to the second floor, with no lift access. Rea described to the Canary that they live with chronic pain “all day, everyday” and that:
Some days are better, others are worse and I’m bedridden.
But the cruel irony is that because the room isn’t wheelchair accessible, Rea hasn’t been able to get a wheelchair. In other words, right now, the lack of wheelchair access means that some days, Rea is entirely unable to leave their hotel room. On the days that they do, it’s still in immense chronic pain that the council has effectively forced them to climb and descend the stairs.
Moreover, Rea’s chronic pain has been continuing to get “worse and worse every year”. It has meant that not only is it getting harder to use the stairs, but having to is also making their condition worse:
some days I’m stuck in my room due to chronic pain meaning I can’t go out at all because of the stairs.
Rea explained that:
I’ll be wheelchair bound in at least ten years, maybe shorter, maybe longer, I’m not sure, but it’s degenerative and constant. I’m on morphine patches to make the pain bearable, but without the patches [it] is just absolutely horrendous.
Appallingly, it is in this context that Newham Council has repeatedly denied Rea alternative temporary accommodation. Rea told the Canary that “Newham Council don’t care”.
They had requested a review of the suitability of the accommodation. This was only for the council to come back and state they hadn’t provided enough medical evidence.
In one email correspondence from the council, it stated how a council housing officer had:
looked on her housing file and noted that you [Rea] previously requested a review and the medical information you provided was sent to our [the council’s] medical advisers who recommended that the accommodation was suitable so the review was upheld at the time.
In effect, the council was telling Rea they needed to prove they needed to use a wheelchair, and that the medical information they’d supplied wasn’t enough.
A ‘prove you’re disabled enough’ culture to support
Of course, this dismissive attitude towards Rea’s lived reality is not uncommon. The onus is often on chronically ill and disabled people to ‘prove’ they’re disabled ‘enough’ to get everything from social security entitlements, medical care, and in Rea’s instance like undoubtedly many others, accessible housing.
The problem with this is that it’s not always possible to actually obtain that medical evidence. There are often multiple barriers to getting correct diagnoses and adequate care for many chronic health conditions and disabilities. For one, being chronically ill and disabled in itself can be a hurdle.
In Rea’s case, their combination of constant chronic pain and severe mental health conditions makes the process additionally challenging, and actually poses a risk to their health.
What’s more, privilege in dimensions of race, class, gender, and other demographics play a significant part in access to diagnoses and care. In short, racially minoritised, working class, women, non-binary, and transgender communities will all have less access to the healthcare system, and face marginalisation, neglect, and medical stigma when they do.
So, without proper diagnosis and treatment, gathering the medical evidence needed can be next to impossible for some disabled people. Then, the prejudice against so-called ‘invisible’ chronic illnesses and disabilities, and mental health conditions, compounds all this only further. On this basis, it means many disabled people would be shut out from accommodation that’s accessible and appropriate for their needs.
A ‘shoddily built’ place to live
Needless to say, this dire accommodation arrangement has been actively dangerous to Rea’s health. However, the inaccessibility is just one of multiple problems Rea has faced with the hotel. This is because, to make matters worse, the building Newham Council has housed them in is also decidedly not fit for purpose and poses multiple health hazards for Rea.
For a start, Rea detailed how the room itself is “shoddily built”, with just one single-pane window, mice in the walls, and problems with leaks.
They relayed to the Canary how:
The walls are thin and I can hear everything
Located on a busy main arterial road right next to a petrol station, Rea told the Canary how the noise is taking a significant toll on them:
The noise from the petrol station is really bad, people rev their engines all hours of the day and night, shouting and fights. It’s noise torture.
Alongside the constant clamour from the petrol station, the other residents at the hotel have been making it hard to sleep soundly as well. Rea explained how their neighbours shout and bang on their walls and this is making their C-PTSD worse. As a result, they expressed that they are:
constantly on edge and having near nightly panic attacks.
The fire alarm going off often, at random times, has only added to this. Rea said that:
even people showering makes it go off, and it has gone off at 2am, 3am, 4am before multiple times, and it triggers my C-PTSD every single time. Couple that with near monthly fire drills and that’s a lot of alarms going off.
On multiple occasions, Rea has also gone without hot water – which has only made things harder on their chronic pain:
Hot water is never guaranteed and there was one instance where there was no hot water for two weeks during December time. The amount of times I’ve gone to shower (which is hard with my disabilities) and there’s been no hot water, or the hot water stops working mid shower, is appalling.
None of this makes it acceptable temporary accommodation for anyone to live in. However, it’s all the more atrocious for Rea as a disabled person living with C-PTSD and severe mental health problems.
And not only has the disgraceful unlivable conditions put Rea’s health at risk, but the hotel is even actively unsafe for them on multiple levels.
Actively unsafe accommodation: harassment of vulnerable residents
Rea detailed to the Canary that they have been harassed by “multiple men” at the hotel. They recounted how:
one even knocked on my door and tried coaxing me out of my room to do god knows what, and this has happened to multiple women in the building.
It’s evident that the hotel is unsafe for women, female-presenting or feminine appearing non-binary individuals.
Staff at the hotel have also entered Rea’s room on multiple occasions without warning. For someone with trauma like Rea – it has been highly triggering. Rea said that:
staff have even entered my room while I’ve been sleeping as we have to have monthly room checks. Staff have keys to every room in the building and they’ve come in my room without giving me time to wake up to open the door, multiple times, again more nightmares of that.
In one instance, maintenance staff “trashed” their room, using their towels to mop up a leak while Rea was out visiting family. They came back to “utter shambles”, and Rea explained that:
This has caused irreparable psychological damage and the level of anxiety I get when I have to leave for appointments or other things is insane.
No social housing available under Newham Council
When Rea contacted Newham Council about all this, it met them with only further dismissal:
I’ve told and emailed Newham council about all these things, the men harassing me, the maintenance fiasco, there’s even mice in the walls.
I even told Newham council to please move me, explaining the above and to please move me somewhere with a lift, even psychiatrists have sent them letters explaining that this place is no good for me, wanna know their response? A half arsed apology and told me to go private.
Rea described how their first housing officer had been “uninterested” in helping them. For “months”, there was silence from the council about all the issues they’d raised. Rea later found out that their housing officer had left – but that wasn’t the worst part:
after months of not hearing anything, thanks to me sending an angry email, I find out that my housing officer had left that job three MONTHS before my email, and that my case had been forgotten and left with NO ONE.
So I had no housing officer or anyone on my case. They gave me a new person who again was uncaring and uninterested in helping me. I’ve heard NOTHING from them since.
Throughout this horrendous period of neglect from Newham Council, Rea has desperately searched the council’s social housing register. However, they keep coming up empty. Rea said that:
I’ve been in this place for two and a half years. I bid on properties, when they actually have any come up – I learned that logging in at midnight on a Thursday/Friday is the only way to even have a chance at getting a property. But most of the time there’s NOTHING to bid on. I’m a priority home seeker, but considering that I’ve been here for as long as I have, it doesn’t seem that way.
I log on every week just to be disappointed with zero eligible properties showing up, and when they do I’m already too late. The devastation each week is getting to me.
Ultimately then, there’s been no urgency from Newham Council to move Rea into a safe and long-term home. The council’s housing officers have, atrociously – left Rea entirely without support.
Putting disabled residents’ lives at risk
However, Newham’s failure to move Rea into social housing is perhaps unsurprising in the context of its lack of supply more broadly. In evidence the council provided to the London Assembly Housing Committee, it told it that:
There are currently over 36,000 households on the housing register, most of whom also have a reasonably [sic] preference… The lack of supply of social housing is a key barrier to moving people on from temporary accommodation – each year around 6-800 social rented properties become available.
In short, it simply doesn’t have enough social housing to meet demand. Invariably, it’s disabled people like Rea with accessibility and other specific needs, who bear the brunt of this increasing lack in social housing stock.
After two years of living somewhere inaccessible, unsafe, and triggering, it’s massively taking its toll on Rea’s physical and mental health. Rea confided in the Canary the harrowing impact of their ongoing living situation:
Two-plus years of it I’m really surprised I haven’t ended my life, that’s how all of this has made me feel, I just want it all to be over with.
The council’s de facto abandonment of Rea in the horrendous accommodation is making them feel suicidal. Rea summed up how this is entirely on Newham’s hands:
If I have to continue ‘living’ in this place my death will be Newham Council’s fault. I cannot physically, mentally, and emotionally stay in this place anymore. I’d rather be dead than deal with this suffering anymore.
The Canary checked that Rea has support, and that they’re not currently at risk of harming themselves.
However, this underscored an important point. Checking in on Rea’s wellbeing is something that Newham Council is – and has not – been doing. It has in fact done quite the opposite. It has left Rea trapped in unsuitable, unsafe, and arguably, hardly habitable temporary accommodation – not simply without regular contact, but practically without any contact at all.
And according to Rea, theirs isn’t an isolated story:
I’m not the only one who experiences this from Newham Council. Many people have told me they’re the worst council in London, and Newham Council continue to prove them right.
Moreover, Rea has witnessed it firsthand with other residents in their building too:
They don’t care about their vulnerable and disabled homeless. They continue to put disabled people in this building on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floor- again with NO LIFT.
Newham Council says…
The Canary contacted Newham Council for comment. A Newham Council spokesperson said:
As a Council we have a duty of care to residents seeking our help. Since this individual has chosen to be anonymous, we cannot address all the issues raised.
However, we do our best to ensure everyone gets appropriate accommodation for their needs; and we have a robust complaints process for those that feel these have been inadequately met. We would encourage this person to contact the service directly for us to respond.
On a more general note, it is no secret that the country, and London in particular, has a serious housing crisis. There are simply not enough affordable homes available for rent.
Our housing team works under enormous pressure to find places to stay both short and long term. We are proud to say they do this with the utmost professionalism, humanity, and care, never forgetting that they are dealing with individuals and families often with complex needs.
However, it’s clear that Rea’s experience is part of a broader set of systemic problems at the East London council.
Systemic housing problems and an ableist culture writ large at Newham Council
In October 2024, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) handed Newham the worst rating for its housing stock.
Notably, it issued its first ever ‘C4’ grading to the London borough. This is the lowest possible rating of its new consumer standards that it introduced in April 2024. Specifically, this refers to “serious failings” where landlords need to make “fundamental changes” to the condition of their properties.
In Newham Council’s case, RSH found that at least 20% of its homes do not meet basic living standards. On top of this, the regulator identified other damning issues with its stock, including:
- More than 9,000 fire safety remedial actions that needed attention. Nearly nine in ten of these were overdue by over a year. Close to half were high risk.
- Of 16,000 homes, it had not carried out electrical condition tests on 40% of these for more than 11 years.
- None of its homes met smoke and carbon monoxide alarm requirements.
Following these scathing revelations, the Labour Party council’s housing lead, councillor Shaban Mohammed, resigned from cabinet.
In the context of its appalling social housing record, perhaps it’s little wonder too then that the council’s temporary accommodation is so atrociously unfit for purpose. But alarmingly, this is also what Rea could face when they finally get access to social housing.
Now, Rea’s story has shown how the council’s abysmal housing situation is impacting disabled residents. More than this however, the neglect and dismissal of Rea points to a more embedded ableist culture that’s compounding these issues for disabled people experiencing homelessness in the community.
Ultimately, Rea felt that:
They don’t treat us like people, we’re just cattle that get put in these places to rot and suffer. We deserve kindness and better accommodation than this, but the government continues to blame us for economic problems and Newham Council will be responsible for many deaths, including mine, if they don’t get their act together.
Featured image via the Canary
