The tenants network Social Housing Action Campaign (SHAC) is urging housing associations to sign up to a disability charter, that aims to improve conditions for disabled people and eliminate discrimination and stigma. The charter, which was developed by the Disability Visibility Group (DVG) which represents disabled members of SHAC, includes a set of commitments housing associations must agree to ensure they are complying with the Equality Act.
The nine commitments are:
- We agree to promote the rights and the provision of quality living conditions for all disabled tenants/residents, and specifically to improve policies and procedures for those affected by mental health and neurodiverse disabilities
- We will demonstrate this by agreeing to all commitments enclosed in this charter scheme document
- We will engage as requested with the DVG to support us in the fulfilment of these commitments
- We will agree to transparency of communication and information with the DVG so that we can genuinely address areas for improvement in our service provision to disabled tenants
- We agree to a 3-month ‘turnaround time’ to make the appropriate organisational adjustments in order to fulfil our commitments
- We will seek to avoid placing the burden of a formal complaints process on disabled tenants/residents and will aim to monitor our progress closely to promptly recognise breaches in any aspect of this charter scheme
- We agree to surveys by the DVG with our tenants/residents to evaluate our charter scheme progress and agree to respond accordingly to all feedback
- We agree to provide an automatic compensatory payment of £50.00 per commitment breach which is not reasonably resolved within 30 days of the breach
- We agree to publish this charter scheme document on our website to ensure that our disabled tenants/residents commitments are aware of the enclosed commitments and of their associated entitlements