“We noticed a totally different Xenia in the three years since she moved here. She’s more confident, more outgoing, she’s blossomed.”
It was not so long ago that Xenia Kyriacou was asked to leave a restaurant after showing challenging behaviour and overturning a table in frustration. The 'outburst' was a reflection of Xenia’s complex needs and the fact she was overwhelmed.
Yet just a few months ago, in another local restaurant near her new two-bedroom flat in Hackney, east London, Xenia enjoyed a birthday lunch, was presented with a card from the owners and offered a discount on her return.
The transformation in Xenia’s behaviour – the fact she is more confident socially and gets overwhelmed less easily – is the latest successful outcome in her life. She is, as her younger sister Christina says, more settled and “just a lot happier” since she moved out of residential care and into her own place. Previously, she was sharing with another woman with complex needs and the pair had 24-hour care provided by two support staff.
Xenia, who is non-verbal and communicates with staff partly through visual prompts, owns 40% of her flat, with the remaining 60% owned by her social landlord, Newlon Housing Trust. Advance provides her 24-hour one-to-one support.
Sonia Lyng, shared ownership project manager at Outward, Newlon’s support and care partner, adds: “Shared ownership allows people to have their own space. They might have a range of support needs and in trying to live with other people who also have additional needs, they’re effectively being set up to be distressed. Some people I’ve supported into shared ownership haven’t been happy in a group situation but are flourishing on their own.”
View more videos on shared ownership successes.
The Home ownership for people with long term disabilities (HOLD) scheme provides a cost-effective solution to the health, housing and support needs of disabled people.
Advance, a provider of housing, support and employment for disabled people and Disability Rights UK, the national user led disability organisation, launched a joint report on shared ownership housing for severely disabled people.
We also produced a policy briefing which points out that HOLD:
- Encourages independence of disabled people
- Reduces reliance on other types of institutional care
- Provides good value for money by decreasing hospital admissions and reducing social care packages
- Promotes community integration and diverse neighbourhoods.
You can view both the report and the briefing at http://disabilityrightsuk.org/news/2013/november/home-ownership-option-disabled-people