DISABILITY AWARENESS & ACTION for Jersey 2018 - Post 1

Jersey is supposed to be planning a "Disability Strategy" which will include anti- discrimination laws specific to disability and to ratify the appropriate UN convention.

If such proposals are ever to be implemented must be very doubtful because the whole topic of "disability" is not adequately understood, supported or funded in Jersey.

When I post blogs on the subject there is usually very little interest which is odd since up to 30,000 people in Jersey are calculated to be directly or indirectly affected by disability.

So this year, I have decided to probe the whole subject more resolutely.
I note that Guernsey has very active campaigning and some very well organised lobbying and some States members in that Island take the matter seriously. Yet I note too that although Guernsey has officially adopted a "strategy" its implementation is delayed through lack of funding.

There is a great deal to be done and I have started with a look at some of the so called "social housing" provided by Andium Homes in Jersey.

Andium manages about 3,500 units of housing accommodation on behalf of the public and is supposed to achieve basic minimum standards - aka "Decent Homes Standards."
These are standards borrowed from the UK and are far from perfect as the Grenfell Tower tragedy has demonstrated. But of course Andium only administers a small part of the entire housing stock in Jersey and the "private sector" needs to be looked at critically too.

This  initial two part video looks at the problem of providing housing which is suitable for the tenant. Very often - as in this example - the property has been altered to suit the needs of a particular "disabled" person but is not suitable for use by others.
Universal Design standards are not easy to achieve. One design does not "fit all."

Video one looks at a bathroom/shower room as built.

Video two looks at the kitchen in the same flat.