How disabled renters are risking their health for housing

Report by Zahra Errami, ITV News' Here's the Story

"You can almost plot on a graph how the renting stress has caused my health to get worse." 

Maia, 24, who’s disabled, says her health has suffered because of the stress of trying to find a suitable place to rent in Glasgow. 

She’s one of many disabled young people who have struggled to find a place to call home amid the ‘rental crisis’ in the UK. 

Faced with 'bid-offs' for properties, exhausting herself with constant trips to viewings and rejection when it comes to her income, Maia says looking for a place to live has become "impossible". 

"I have to live somewhere that has good travel links, live near a supermarket and be near a hospital," she said.

"I’m almost scared to tell them I’m disabled because they will think ‘well maybe she can’t have consistent employment'." 

Maia who’s an intersectional disability advocate and works part-time for an anti-loneliness disability enterprise, has recently stopped receiving universal credit after an increase in her pay meant she was slightly over the threshold to receive it. She’s also been on the social housing list for almost two years. 

Though she does get an ADP (Adult Disability Payment - formerly the Personal Independence Payment), that only just about covers the costs of traveling to hospital appointments, which for Maia can be as frequent as five days a week. 

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Although there are regulations in place in Scotland that mean private landlords can’t refuse tenants that receive benefits, Maia believes some have been getting around it. 

"Though it’s illegal in Scotland to say ‘no benefits’, they can say it in other ways," she says.

"If they set the income threshold lower than those who claim a means-tested benefit."

That income threshold is what Maia says is becoming increasingly difficult to meet, with her and her partner's combined income often not meeting private landlords' expectations. 

The cost-of-living crisis has seen low-income households, with higher-than-average energy bills, hit hardest, according to an Institute for Government study.

She says: "I on and off have a feeding tube, that requires constant electricity because the battery pack is awful.

"It’s sad but recently as my condition has got worse, it’s actually been a good thing because i get my food prescribed to me by the NHS.

"There are certain things you can’t cut back on."

Affordability seems to be the main concern for disabled renters. Disability equality charity Scope estimates that the average disabled household face £975 a month in extra costs. 

'We can ramp it, maybe': Eliza struggled with finding accessible accommodation, often finding that estate agents wouldn't have considered their needs

"A lot of people aren’t aware of how much it costs to be disabled," Eliza, from London, says. 

"For me, it costs a lot of money to charge my powered wheelchair. 

"It costs a lot more money for me to feed myself because I struggle to cook food which means I often have to rely on takeaways, which for a lot of people would be a treat, but for me, If I don’t have a takeaway for a ready meal I might not be able to feed myself." 

Eliza finally found an accessible flat in London after two months of searching. Though Eliza now lives in accessible housing, the journey to finding somewhere was far from easy. 

"When I was looking for places online, nothing was listed about access.

"Often I’d show up to viewings and it wouldn’t be wheelchair accessible, the estate agent will have just lied and just said it was," they say.

Content creator Eliza agrees with Maia that affordability is a huge hurdle when looking at properties that have qualities non-disabled people may see as benefits or perks - but for disabled people are instrumental in living their daily lives with ease. 

"What I need from housing as a disabled person is a house where I can get into that’s step free," Eliza says.

"Just wide space, so I can get in and out and around quite easily – a bathroom that’s big enough so I can get my chair in, which was a big issue that I faced a lot." 

Eliza echos Maia's comment that the stress of looking for somewhere to live can impact health.

"Housing is stressful, money is stressful and then when you add a disability and a time limit as well on top of that, it just adds more and more stress. 

"For me, I have a lot of mental health issues, and then moving could also trigger those things," Eliza says. 

Maia says not only has renting impacted her mental health but her physical health too, as her condition is often affected by stress. 

"When you do everything right that people tell you to do and it's still not enough, it’s frustrating.  

"I tend to turn those frustrations inwards. 

"Recently I’ve had issues with malnutrition, weight loss, stress-induced cyclical vomiting, my pain conditions are much worse my chronic migraines are much worse," she says. 

Often when Maia’s condition deteriorates it enables her to work, something she says had a knock-on effect on her income as well as the general cost of living. 

"What hope do I have of raising my income enough on paper so that a private landlord will accept me," she says. 

She fears that the situation she’s in will mean having to look outside of Glasgow for cheaper housing. This could be a good move to save money, but it could cost her healthcare. 

Leaving Glasgow would mean Maia would have to re-apply with different consultants for her hospital care, something which could mean being scrapped from surgical waiting lists. 

"That’s two years of waiting for really critical surgery. If I am forced to leave Glasgow now, maybe move in with my mum or something like that, that just disappears," she says. 

For Kadriye, Maia’s partner, it’s been incredibly difficult watching Maia’s health decline through this process, something they think is completely preventable. 

"As a partner, watching the person you love in pain, knowing that some of the issues that she’s experiencing are preventable- that's just absolutely criminal," Kadriye says. 

Kadriye who lives with Maia, says the process has been like "banging your head against a brick wall", while Maia has attended a load of viewings to no avail. The prospect of living apart might be the only option facing the couple. 

'How much extra would you be willing to pay:' Tenants asked to bid for flats as rents hiked 10%

For things to get better, the couple agreed that better provisions need to be in place to ensure that disabled tenants are housed as a matter of urgency. 

Young disabled renters like Maia and Eliza say though there are some measures in place by both the Scottish and UK government that better protect renters, that doesn’t solve the lack of housing for young people, nor how accessible housing is for disabled renters. 

Disability rights UK say that although the passing of the Renters Reforms Bill through parliament is welcomed, it doesn’t solve a lot of the core issues that disabled people face when looking for places to rent.  

"Although we welcome the abolition of Section 21 and the blanket ban to stop landlords from refusing to rent to those claiming benefits, we are still awaiting changes to make the private rented system fairer and more accessible for Disabled people," a spokesperson says.

"We urge the government to consider using the Bill to improve access to the Disabled Facilities Grant, and to provide a robust Decent Homes Standard that prevents us from living in dangerous homes, as well as to develop new regulations which tackle the ongoing affordability issues across all tenures."