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The Good 4 You Report: Freedom Passes, Disability Discrimination and Disabled Homeless People (May 2006)
This
report can be downloaded from www.good4you.org.uk
Field Work: Unseen disability is common among homeless people. Unseen, because nobody wants to see. Fundamental Concepts and Ideas
Disability Discrimination Defined The Disability Discrimination Act 1995, at Section 20. - (1), says:
…… a provider of services discriminates against a disabled person
if- (b) he cannot show that the treatment in question is justified.
Disability Defined The Social Model of Disability defines disability as: ‘the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes little or no account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from participation in the mainstream of social activities. (UPIAS 1976, cited in Oliver 1996c: 22)[1]’
A Freedom Pass is a permit to travel the trains, tubes, and buses free of charge in all six zones of London. It is available off-peak hours to elderly people and at all times for disabled people. (It is probably the only part of disability that is envied by society and thus not stigmatised.)
Homeless “The term ‘homeless’ is actually a catch word, a misnomer that focuses on only one aspect of the individual’s plight: his lack of residence or housing. In reality, the homeless often have no job, no function, no role within the community; they generally have few social supports. They are jobless, penniless, functionless, and supportless as well as homeless. (Lipton and Sabatini 1984: 156).” This definition is very near to “Social Exclusion”, where members of society will not give certain people a place, or role, in society, nor a job, nor function, nor support, nor money, nor housing, nor friendship, nor love. This happens to disabled people all the time.
One person in Six in the UK is Disabled http://www.dwp.gov.uk/mediacentre/pressreleases/2006/feb/drc-015-090206.asp "The Department for Work and Pensions has updated its estimates which show there are over 10 million disabled people in Britain, including people with limiting longstanding illnesses; of which, 4.6 million are over State Pension Age and 700,000 are children. Disabled people in Great Britain, including people with limiting longstanding illnesses - figures are in millions: Year Children Adults All ages 2002-03 0.7 9.7 10.4 2003-04 0.7 9.5 10.1 The annual spending power of disabled adults is unchanged and is still around £80 billion."
In a population of 60 million, ten million are disabled. That’s one in six people. Contents
.... Contents
Contact us
Francois Greeff: goodgreeff@good4you.org.uk Mail can be addressed to: Good 4 You Telephone: 020 8543 6966 Website: www.good4you.org.uk Executive Summary
The study set out to prove that disabled Freedom Pass applications have become too complex for lay people to manage. Doctors, social workers, psychiatrists, surgeons and Homelessness Service Providers (HSPs) do not have the required expertise, in spite of being experts in their own fields. The only experts who really know the ins and outs of the Freedom Pass system are the Council's Freedom Pass Staff, who work against disabled applicants instead of with or for them. There already are specialists who help disabled and homeless people to apply for Benefits, an equally complex application, and the case is proved that Freedom Pass applicants need the assistance and services of a specialist Freedom Pass Officer.
Secondly, the study sought to prove that the system discriminated against disabled people. In the study 44 applications were made and monitored. It took eight months before one person (only one) got a disabled Freedom Pass. Nondisabled people get theirs from the Post Office and it takes ten minutes. Disabled people were asked to perform unnecessary tasks (eg attend a mobility clinic when it was not required for people with mental illnesses to do so) and they were automatically rejected when they did not attend. Nondisabled people may apply at almost any Post Office but disabled people must each apply at a specific office. In the study 15 disabled people applied to the 'wrong office' and it took four months for the council to notify them that they had to restart their applications at another office. The study showed that the system was distinctly adversarial rather than helpful. The system clearly discriminated against disabled people by treating them 'less favourably' than nondisabled people, without being able to justify the treatment.
The importance of disabled Freedom Passes, as a tool for social science and for research into disabled people who are homeless is dealt with in some depth. Freedom Passes are the only part of disability that has not been stigmatised, and that is not even a mildly taboo subject. Freedom Passes are the only part of disability that is enviable. One can talk about them. One may ask if someone has a Freedom Pass, and it is shown without hesitation, for it has no personal and private information on it. It is shown eagerly, proudly, by people who wait to see the envy it usually evokes.
Secondly, Freedom Passes are irrefutable proof of disability because one cannot get one unless a medical expert has proved disability to (Local) Government Satisfaction.
This study was based on two previous studies, both of which counted disabled Freedom Passes and DLA papers (Disability Living Allowance, benefits for disabled people only). The first study, in December 2003, found sixty disabled people outside of one night shelter. Only those who had one of the two documents were counted as disabled, and their documents were photographed as proof. In the second study the same count was done by independent HSPs. The results of the second study showed that more than half of all homeless people in London are disabled.
The first part of the study also goes to significant lengths to explain what disability is and how it works. A distinction is drawn between the modern Social Model of disability and the outdated medical model of disability, in which 'disability' meant that someone had an impediment. In that model acne would not be seen as a disability because it is a negligible medical condition. The modern Social Model of Disability reasons that the disadvantage that people with impediments suffer when society ignores their impediments or socially excludes them because of their impediments is what disability is. Not having legs is an impediment. Disability arises when society does not take cognisance of impediments and builds stairs instead of ramps. In this model Acne is one of the most serious of disabilities because society will all too often not talk to people with acne, nor employ them (eg in PR or customer relations, aircraft hospitality staff, shop staff, etc), nor date them, nor kiss them, nor love them. The consequence is that people with acne have been so severely socially excluded that many have been driven to suicide. Colin Barnes, Professor of Disability Studies at Leeds University, says that the callous treatment that drives these people to suicide is what makes it one of the most severe disabilities in our modern society.
Much attention is given to the evil that good people do. The churches, the charities and the Government uniformly ignore disability among homeless people. They describe homeless people as having severe mental and physical illnesses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, or amputated limbs, Aids, diabetes, and severe arthritis, but they never think of these people as being disabled people, as the World Health Organisation does. See for yourself: Search Google for Homeless + illness –disability –disabled.
The case is argued that disabled homeless people are assumed to be capable of finding and accessing the services they need. How often does one hear the argument against homelessness: "All they have to do is ask [the Government] and they will be given homes and money!" Because of this widespread fundamental assumption, services are almost never taken to disabled homeless people. In this study the Council consistently put the onus for action on the disabled person and never extended the help of a social worker who went out to the disabled person. The report argues that disabled Freedom Passes should be taken to disabled homeless people because this is one of many services they are unable to access by themselves.
Research and Homelessness Theory consistently make the mistake of citing the life event that immediately precedes homelessness as the cause of homelessness. The dissolution of marriage or families, the loss of jobs, the (premature) end of tenancies, and so on. Disability, and particularly mental illness, can very easily be seen to cause each one of the situations that precede homelessness, so that the true cause of homelessness will have been disability, not the divorce of a disabled person. This logical fallacy is very well known: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
The Red Riding Hood Syndrome is explained briefly. It is shown that society promises disabled people the short easy route and then sends them on the long hard road, just as the Big Bad Wolf did to Little Red Riding Hood. The Freedom Pass application process is an excellent example of how we do not make life easier for disabled people, but harder.
Finally, the report contains a plea to address disability among homeless people. Blind people used to be homeless and lived by begging with the cry 'A penny for the Blind!' Today they are socially included to the point of being in Parliament (and getting fired every now and again). The way in which they moved out of the world of food, shelter and related services into the moral, ethical and legal framework of disability holds valuable lessons for the emancipation of people with unseen disabilities who are still homeless. Introduction A disabled homeless man was given a Freedom Pass and he used it to prove that he was disabled, and thus entitled to a concessionary theatre ticket. The single transaction made him realise that his Freedom Pass was the only proof of disability he had.
The notion of proof led him to realise that counting Freedom Passes in the hands of homeless people would also count disabled people, but without offending people by asking about their disabilities and impediments. Freedom Passes are a positive thing, and there is no offence given or taken in talking or asking about them.
In 2003 he counted sixty Freedom Passes outside of one night shelter and in 2004 he asked Homelessness Service Providers to count Freedom Passes and DLA papers independently. The results showed that more than half of all homeless people in London were disabled. From that insight the need for Good 4 You, a charity for disabled and homeless people, was born.
During these studies very many homeless people asked how to get a Freedom Pass and presented documents that proved them to be severely disabled. Good 4 You became a vehicle for helping those people too. With the help of 20 volunteers from the Homelessness Outreach Team of the South African Congregation in London, Good 4 You set about helping the clients at Union Chapel Margins Day Centre to apply for Freedom Passes. This project monitored only those applications that were made to Islington Borough Council during three weeks (May/June 2005) of the entire project.
The practical research, throughout the entire period, was supplemented by vigorous reading on disability theory and research into medical conditions among homeless people. In mid-2003 this man went on Radio Leeds as a guest of John Boyd and asked if he could bring a guest along. He asked Colin Barnes, Professor of Disability Studies at Leeds University, to go with him. The man explained on air that missing a leg was an impediment and a disability was when society made one’s life difficult because one had no leg. Professor Barnes endorsed what he said and explained that acne is hardly a problem, medically. But people are cruel and unkind to those who have acne to such an extent that many people with acne have been driven to suicide, and that makes acne a very serious disability.
Being driven to suicide by social exclusion opened the man’s eyes all the way to how homeless people are socially excluded. He read up on how all disabled people suffer some degree of social exclusion. Social exclusion forms a vital and central part of this report.
That man is the founder and Managing Director of Good 4 You, and the author of this report.
Francois Greeff London, May 2006.
Extract Freedom Passes are travel permits that allow disabled and elderly people to travel free in London. This report reveals how disabled people are discriminated against by the Freedom Pass authorities because they have far more difficulty, in the extreme, in getting a Freedom Pass than nondisabled, or elderly, people do.
It is unheard of for an elderly person to be refused a Freedom Pass. Elderly Freedom Passes are issued within fifteen minutes, at any London Post Office. This study observed forty four applicants for a disabled Freedom Pass and found that only one applicant was successful, and that was eight months after applying. The issuing authority made no attempt to assist disabled applicants but expected them to fend for themselves at all times. The disabled Freedom Pass application process is distinctly adversarial rather than helpful.
The application process for disabled Freedom Passes is so difficult and complex that the intervention and assistance of a specialist Freedom Pass Officer is necessary. This report recommends that:
The Report
1. The Aim and Purpose of the Study
2. The Historical Foundation for the Study The study is based on two previous studies in London, which both showed clearly that disabled people were homeless in significant numbers.
In the first of these two studies, in December 2003, homeless people at one night shelter were asked if they would allow Good 4 You to photograph their Disabled Freedom Passes[2] and their DLA (Disability Living Allowance) Books. Sixty people, at one night shelter, were able to produce documents that proved that they were disabled.
In the second study 49 HSPs (Homelessness Service Providers) were asked to count the same two documents among their clients. More than 90% of HSPs did not respond, even when sent a second letter[3]. Four centres reported significant degrees of disability:
These figures confirmed the result found in the first study and left no doubt that at least half of all homeless people in London were disabled people[4].
No HSP in London has a full time Disability Officer who is a senior member of staff and holds no other portfolio[5]. In fact, Good 4 You has never seen nor heard of any Disability Officer anywhere in the entire Homelessness Industry and would dearly like to hear from anyone who can identify a Disability Officer anywhere in the Homelessness Industry.
The homelessness industry does not address disability in any significant way[6]. A very good example of this failure to recognise disability lies in the wealth of research documents that point out (globally) the extremely poor health of homeless people. These documents[7] list medical conditions like diabetes, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, severe arthritis, and the amputation of limbs as illnesses without ever considering that the World Health Organisation has formally classified them as disabilities in the World Health Organisation International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). At no point do any of these research reports realistically consider providing disability services instead of medical services[8].
3. A Paradigm Shift (from food and shelter to disability rights and social inclusion) The Homelessness Industry needs to move out of the paradigm in which homeless people are regarded as being the problem and where they are given food, shelter and related services. The Homelessness Industry needs to move into a paradigm of disability that considers homeless people to be marginalised because of social exclusion by other people and organisations[9].
The emancipation of blind people came about partly because blind people moved out of the world of homelessness that offered them food, shelter and related services and into the moral, ethical and legal framework of disability. Homelessness gave blind people food, shelter and related services but recognition of their disability gave them rights and social inclusion to the point that David Blunkett became a member of Parliament. Today we never hear the well known cry of formerly homeless blind people: “A penny for the blind”.
Photo: Paul Strand, New York, 1916 (The badge reads "Licensed Peddler 2622 New York City"). Blind people made the paradigm shift from social exclusion, begging, homelessness and handouts of food and shelter to almost complete social inclusion because they came out of the disability closet and spoke up about their disability. They made their disability visible. Two World Wars helped to make their disability visible. They stopped apologising for being blind and demanded rights. For at least half a century, someone like the RNIB spent the pre-inflation equivalent of One Hundred Million Pounds per annum, every year, on their cause. The emancipation of blind people presents a case history that holds extremely valuable lessons for the emancipation of homeless people with unseen disabilities.
Good 4 You believes emphatically that disabled homeless people should migrate from the homelessness camp to the moral, ethical and legal framework of disability. This will gradually allow them to escape the social exclusion of disabled people that caused them to become homeless in the first place.
The only way to achieve this migration from the homelessness camp to the moral, ethical and legal framework of disability is to make the Homelessness Industry aware of disability by providing disability services inside their day centres. Involving their staff in disability services makes these people aware of the fact that 'our clients' are disabled. Avarice and the need to raise funds for their day centres very quickly makes the same people realise that they can tick both the homelessness and the disability boxes on their funding application forms, but only if they start rendering disability services, which they will do, just to get the money[10].
4. Homeless and elderly people cannot be disabled? Few people think of someone who is 95 years old as a disabled person, even if that person is unable to walk, or hold a cup, or see, or is completely bedridden by a paralysing stroke and looked after and fed by a carer. Somehow, these things are just normal for very old people. Disability is when younger people have these problems prematurely.
The problem is that age is a category of human thinking that completely obscures the idea of disability. Homelessness is another category of thinking that completely obscures disability. It is unthinkable that disabled people can be homeless in London or in our western civilization. This causes a serious problem in the research, literature and culture of disabled people who are socially excluded to the point of homelessness.
Dr Maureen Crane, for example, is a leader in the field of research into the problems and difficulties of elderly people who are homeless. There can be no doubt that the excellent work she has done has revolutionised the treatment of elderly disabled homeless people. Their lives must have improved dramatically because of her research. In one major failing she is exactly like the rest of the homelessness industry: She does not operate inside the paradigm of disability. She does not write that the World Health Organisation classifies as disabled many of the people she describes in her reports. Here are examples of instances in which one should certainly have considered that the people in question may be disabled and entitled to the benefits of being included in the moral, ethical and legal framework of disabled people. The examples come from several different authors and texts. They are not an attack on the authors, nor even a rebuke. The example serve as an appeal to all people who write about disabled people to say that they are disabled, and to put them in the Moral, ethical and legal framework that so greatly benefits blind people.
With apologies to the authors, please note the missing words, ‘Disability’ and ‘Disabled’:
“Some older homeless people have such severe mental health problems that they are unaware of their needs and their mental health problems prevent them from seeking help and accepting it when it is offered to them.” (http://www.homeless.org.uk/db/20010222142512 - Homeless Link website, Older homeless people with multiple needs)
The next two quotations are from chapter three of Our Forgotten Elders by Dr Maureen Crane of Sheffield University, which is on the St Mungo’s web site: “One elderly man in London was found on the streets by out-reach workers. He had slept rough for years, was physically ill, and the workers arranged his admission to hospital. He was suffering from frost-bite and gangrene and both his feet required amputation (Crane and Warnes, 1999).” (http://www.mungos.org/facts/crane_report/chapters3and4.pdf)
Both feet amputated, and the idea of disability does not arise! No mention of disability occurs in Dr Crane’s text.
Dr Crane also writes: “For many older homeless people, a mental illness distorts their perceptions of reality, influences their capacity to seek and accept services, and thus helps to sustain homelessness. One man, aged in his sixties, had slept rough in London for seven years but refused to access day centres. He believed that the staff were terrorists, and that they would ‘cut off my legs so I couldn’t escape, and cut off my arms so that I couldn’t write or phone for help’. A high proportion of older women sleeping rough have severe mental health problems and, according to out-reach workers, this group is most withdrawn, suspicious, hostile and reluctant to accept help (Crane and Warnes, 2000a). Some older homeless people have severe memory problems and are disorientated and confused. These problems may only become apparent when they leave the streets and move into hostels. On admission to the Lancefield Street Centre, 16% of the residents had memory difficulties and for 12% these problems were marked. They required regular assistance with everyday tasks, such as attending to personal hygiene, managing finances, and laundry. They also needed to be constantly reminded when meals were served and how to reach their bedrooms. Three men were unable to find their way around the hostel after six months and would get lost when they went out (see case study 6, Chapter 5).” (http://www.mungos.org/facts/crane_report/chapters3and4.pdf)
None of these people were considered to be disabled.
A page from the Homeless Link web site quotes from the National Homeless Alliance, but does not question that they do not mention disability: “Definition of multiple needs National Homeless Alliance has drafted a definition that is very much work in progress: A typical homeless or ex homeless person with Multiple Needs will often present with three or more of the following, and will not be in effective contact with services:
If one were to be resolved, the others would still give cause for concern.” (http://www.homeless.org.uk/db/20010222142512 - Homeless Link website, Older homeless people with multiple needs.)
The absence of the word ‘disability’ is what gives cause for concern.
Rethink has done some sterling work to highlight the problems of homeless people with severe mental illness. Typical of the homelessness industry, they do not operate inside the paradigm of disability. Here is a quote from Rethink Policy Statement 32, Homeless people with a severe mental illness:
“10 The report, Pressure Points (1999), by the national homelessness charity, 'Crisis', estimated that: a third of people who are evicted from accommodation suffer from mental illness 60% of homeless people suffer from some form of mental distress 20% of roofless people have a severe mental illness people who sleep rough are 35 times more likely to kill themselves than the general population.” (http://www.rethink.org/news+campaigns/policies/32-homeless.htm)
In the foreword to ‘More than a Roof’ Louise Casey writes: “This report has been prepared at the request of the Rt. Hon Stephen Byers MP, the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government & the Regions. He asked for a document that was honest about the problem of homelessness in this country, and challenging in ways to tackle it.” and “Many factors cause homelessness. Relationships breakdown, women flee violent domestic situations, young people are thrown out of home and alcoholics spend their rent on drink. Helping someone to rebuild relationships with family or friends, stay in education or take up training or employment and deal with a drug, alcohol or mental health problem is as much about tackling homelessness as ensuring a roof over their head.” Disability? Never heard of it!
The report itself goes on to discuss the economy, house prices and other causes of homelessness, but it never considers disability and Social Exclusion to be causes of homelessness. In the main body of the report (page 7) one finds a table of ‘causes of homelessness:
Across the majority of homeless groups, the 'personal' factors that cause homelessness are relatively unrecorded and unanalysed. Recorded triggers for households accepted by local authorities as homeless are shown below.
Local authorities are asked to record the reasons when they accept a household as being unintentionally homeless and in priority need, but it is recognised that these recorded reasons often obscure a complex chain of events that preceded the homelessness acceptance. In addition, the causes of homelessness can be exacerbated by overcrowding, living in deprived areas, racism and discrimination.”
Disability is not considered as a cause of homelessness. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc, a logical fallacy in which if A follows B, then A is caused by B. The causes of homelessness are only considered to be the events immediately preceding homelessness. It is not considered that disability can cause parents to be unable to accommodate; friends to be unable to accommodate; the loss of a job; the loss of income; rent arrears, loss or end of tenancy and finally homelessness.
All these quotations serve only to demonstrate three questions: Do Louise Casey, the Rt. Hon Stephen Byers MP, Dr Crane, Sheffield University, St Mungo’s, Homeless Link, the National Homelessness Alliance, Rethink and Crisis operate inside the paradigm of disability, or not? Is their thinking locked into a paradigm of food, shelter and related services and, of course, in the outdated medical model of disability that presumes that the fault lies in disabled people rather than in the way they are treated? In which paradigm does the entire Homelessness Industry operate?
Please go to Google and search: Homeless + mental + physical + illness –disability –disabled Or Homeless + mental + physical + health –disability –disabled Or Homeless + health –disability –disabled
The search will yield up an incredible range of research documents and articles that describe disabled people as being in poor health or as being ill, just because they are homeless or old, all without the word disability. These are two categories of human thinking that completely obscure disability and disability rights. Somehow it does not enter the normal mind to think that homeless or elderly people can be disabled. Age obscures disability to such an extent that someone who goes blind at 95 is not disabled, just old. And being blind at 95 is pretty normal.
The worst part of this thinking, for the purposes of this study, is that many disabled people who turn 60 have their disabled Freedom Pass revoked and are issued with a new elderly Freedom Pass[11], as though they are no longer disabled, but now just old.
Before reading any homelessness document on a computer one should always: Click on ‘Edit’ Click on ‘Find’ And then search for disab Click on ‘find next’ to see all instances of disability and disabled in the document.
5. The Importance of Freedom Passes to the Homelessness Industry
6. Methodology The study was conducted at Union Chapel Margins Homelessness Project, a Sundays only day centre for homeless people. Twenty volunteers from the South African Congregation in London helped to conduct interviews to complete a structured questionnaire after which appropriate candidates were helped to fill out an application for a disabled Freedom Pass.
These applications were then taken to Islington Borough Council in an exceptional block application with a special request that the Council make the allowance for disability that is required by the DDA. The Council agreed to give these applications special consideration and to take into consideration the fact that many of the applicants were likely to be so severely dysfunctional as to be homeless and sleeping on the streets. The Council would give such applicants every assistance in making application.
The volunteers monitored the progress of and feedback from the Council without interfering or urging the Council to greater haste. The progress the Council made in processing applications was recorded.
7. Chronology of events On 15 May 2005, on 22 May 2005 and on 5 June 2005 the initial interviews were conducted and the Freedom Pass applications completed.
On 8 June 2005 these applications were collected together and submitted to Islington Council in one batch of 45 applications. The Council agreed to give these applications special assistance because many of the applicants were not only disabled but also so extremely dysfunctional as to be homeless and sleeping rough.
On 7 October 2005, four months later, Islington Council informed 15 applicants that their applications had been refused because they should apply to other Boroughs; the Boroughs in which the applicants are resident. Three of these applicants are on record as "NFA", or having No Fixed Address. The addresses given in the application forms are the addresses of other people and serve only as contact addresses.
On the same day, 7 October 2005, a further six people were notified that their applications were refused because they had said that they were not disabled, had not filled out the form they had signed, or had claimed drug or alcohol addiction as their disability. In spite of the forms clearly authorising the Council to contact their medical practitioners for information to support the applications, the Council did not contact their medical practitioners to find out whether these people were disabled by, for example, a severe and disabling mental illness. The Council made no effort to help them to get, or even to make proper application for, a Freedom Pass[13].
In November 2005 all 23 remaining applicants were informed that they had to attend Peckwater Centre for a Mobility Assessment. A block booking was made for the mornings of 29 and 30 November, regardless of whether the applicants were able to attend at the allocated time or not. Two applicants attended the assessment, which was held six months after they had applied.
All the surviving applications were required to attend a Mobility Assessment. The Council's own rules are that applicants with mental illnesses are not required to attend a Mobility Assessment. Among the 23 surviving applications there were: one person with Bipolar Disorder, two with Manic Depression (the same thing), one with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, one with Mental Health Problems, one with Paranoid Depression, one with Agrophobia, one with a Learning Disability, and one with a Mental Illness. All nine of them were required to attend a mobility assessment that was never necessary in terms of Islington Borough Council's own rules. There was also an epileptic, who automatically qualifies and does not need a mobility assessment, making the total ten people.
By 31 January 2006 not one single person in the group had been given a Freedom Pass. Not one of the 23 remaining applicants had been told whether or not their applications had been approved or rejected.
On 31 January 2006 Good 4 You phoned the Council and was told that: a) only two people attended the mobility assessment b) it was likely that two people would be granted a Freedom Pass (One had attended the assessment in spite of a mental illness that made attendance unnecessary and the other person's name and details could not be found by the Council during the telephone conversation) c) One applicant had a lower limb missing, but this was not mentioned in his application [which cited Mental Illness as disability][14]. That person [not his doctor] would be asked for further information by the Council. (The council would not seek evidence of the amputation from the applicant’s medical practitioner, in spite of being authorised to do so. This practice isolates disabled people from those who might help them, increasing their vulnerability and social exclusion. The council’s default remains at putting the onus on the disabled person.) d) Any person who qualifies for the assistance of a mental health worker automatically qualifies for a Freedom Pass (but this fact is not mentioned in the application form). e) Applicants on mental health grounds must have an Islington Borough Council Mental Health Worker in order to get a Freedom Pass (but this fact is not mentioned in the application form)[15] f) There is a set procedure in case one loses a Freedom Pass Card. It provides that if one loses three cards then one is no longer entitled to a disabled Freedom Pass. g) One of the 23 remaining applicants, who had Bipolar Disorder, a disability that impairs memory and concentration, was refused a Disabled Freedom Pass because she had already lost three cards. h) When asked if any person could be given a Disabled Freedom Pass on the day of application, the answer was yes, if the applicant brings proof of Higher Rate of Mobility Disability Living Allowance and proof of address (not mentioned in the application form).
On 2 March 2006 Good 4 You phoned the Council again. One person had been given a disabled Freedom Pass.
Good 4 You was told the name of the second applicant who would be able to get a Freedom Pass. He was a 64 year old man whose disabilities (Rheumatism, partial sightedness and Literacy Problems) were not relevant because he automatically qualifies for an elderly Freedom Pass (off peak hours only, thus cheaper).
One of the twenty two remaining, or ‘pending’, applicants who had cited manic depression (i.e. Bipolar Disorder) as his disability told Good 4 You that he had also applied for a disabled Freedom Pass in another Borough and that he had been granted it, while Islington refused to grant him one (probably because he had not attended the Mobility Assessment).
Of 45 applications lodged with Islington Borough Council one was just lost. It never appears anywhere in their correspondence or documents. The rather slender possibility exists, of course, that Good 4 You omitted to apply for one document in a pile of 45 documents.
Twenty two unsuccessful applicants were never informed that their applications did not succeed. They were never given any reason why they did not get a Freedom Pass. They were just left to wait, and wait, and wait, and eventually to realise by themselves that ‘nothing happened’.
Good 4 You was also told that the council no longer contacts the medical practitioner named on the form. Applications are assessed internally, either by the mobility assessment team or by the mental health team. The applicant’s doctor now has nothing to do with the application. The form, however, still requires disabled people to disclose the name of their medical practitioner and to authorise the council to contact the practitioner for medical information about the applicant. In this regard Good 4 You repeatedly made a very serious mistake: Applications with very scant information were submitted because it was assumed that the doctor would provide more detail than merely “mental illness” that the applicant volunteered to the Good 4 You volunteer. Furthermore, it is typical of adversarial situations that one party can gain advantage by isolating the other party from allies, support structures and supporting expertise. It is appalling to see the same tactic used to isolate disabled people who apply for help regarding their disability. Worst of all, it is blatantly dishonest to lead the applicant to believe that the council will obtain information to assist the applicant when the council has no intention of doing so at all.
This advert is typical of the search for expertise in the Freedom Pass system. It shows that the authorities are more than willing to go to great lengths and expense to employ people who know what they are doing. Unfortunately, the experts are all, without exception, on the wrong side of an adversarial system. These experts are employed and paid by the council, and that is where their loyalties will lie. Why can the authorities not continue to use the medical reports that disabled people get from their own Doctors, who know them well and have been treating them for years? The time is well overdue to employ the same expertise for applicants rather than for Councils. The expertise that disabled applicants need is administrative, with special skills in Disability Studies. They need their own experts to help their own Doctors with the regulations that govern the issue of disabled Freedom Passes.
8. Disabled and Nondisabled Freedom Pass applications compared The fundamental assumption behind Freedom Passes is that elderly and disabled people have reduced or impaired mobility, and thus society should help them to travel. In practice this assumption follows automatically for all nondisabled people but not for disabled people. Worse still, there is an attitude that elderly people are entitled to Freedom Passes but that disabled people are a bunch of chancers who are out to defraud the system and who are out to get a Freedom Pass by hook or by crook.
All nondisabled people referred to in this list are people over 60.
9. The Red Riding Hood Syndrome and disabled Freedom Passes
In the original story the wolf meets Little Red Riding Hood and offers her the short easy route to her granny's house. But he lies and deliberately sends her on a longer, harder route so that he may gain an advantage over her. Our society does this to disabled people, which is why disabled people find it harder to find work than non-disabled people.
This report bears witness to the fact that disabled people are offered the short easy route (Freedom Passes for all disabled people) and that they must then follow the long, hard route instead (Being pushed around for months instead of getting a Freedom Pass on the day of application). This entire report is an excellent example of the prejudice and social exclusion that people with unseen disabilities suffer.
Disabled Freedom Passes are an excellent example of how the Red Riding Hood Syndrome constantly and actively works against disabled people.
Social exclusion is about the way that society excludes minorities from activities that they are entitled to partake in. The disabled Freedom Pass system is designed to exclude disabled people from a benefit they are entitled to have.
10. Delivering disability services instead of assuming that disabled homeless people can and will find and access these services Dr Maureen Crane, in the executive summary of Our Forgotten Elders, reports that: “Statutory services assume that people in need are able and will ask for help, or that they have family who will intervene on their behalf. Their staff rarely search on the streets for vulnerable people with unmet needs who do not seek help. The help that many older homeless people currently receive is provided by voluntary sector organisations.”
In other words, statutory services (and charities too) do not offer take-away services. They do not deliver their services to their clients but expect the client to come to them. They also, in the manner of the Income Tax office, expect the client to do most of the work. When resources to run these services are limited these policies make sense, but not when the client is prevented from accessing the service by disability.
After all, what impediment means is that someone has a specific inability to perform tasks that are ordinarily taken for granted as being such that everyone can do them. Disability is when society fails to take cognisance of people with impediments and fails to act in such a way as to be helpful.
The extremely high incidence of disabled people among homeless people is a clear indication that disability services are not sufficiently taken to people who cannot access the services they need by themselves. One of the services that is available to disabled homeless people in London and that is not taken up as it should be is the Freedom Pass. The reasons for this is that Freedom Passes are not well advertised, that homeless people often do not know that their ‘illness’ is a disability (eg schizophrenia and diabetes), that application is difficult and complex, that Councils create obstacles to successful application, that disabled homeless people are often so severely dysfunctional as to be unable to apply themselves and that they do not have friends, family, medical and social workers, or a Freedom Pass Officer to help them through the application process.
Throughout this study the council continuously put the onus on the disabled person. If a disabled person submitted an incomplete application the council required that the disabled person complete it. In no instance did the council offer to assist the disabled applicant, nor was a social worker sent out to help the disabled applicant, and the council did not even ask any other person (eg the applicant’s doctor) to assist the disabled applicant.
It is vitally important that Good 4 You appoints a Freedom Pass Officer to take disabled Freedom Passes out onto the streets to those disabled homeless people who cannot access this complex disability service by themselves.
11. The Application Forms Good 4 You requested application forms, or downloaded them from the internet (Islington), from Camden, Hackney, Haringey, Harrow North, Islington, Lambeth, London City Corporation, Tower Hamlets and Westminster. During the study clients who came for lunch at Margins at Highbury Corner, Islington, were helped to apply for Freedom Passes at all these Boroughs except Harrow North, who refused to send Good 4 You an application form even when they were told that Good 4 You was a charity that was helping a disabled person to apply for a Freedom Pass. The consequence was that this bit of red tape prevented a disabled person from being able to apply for a Freedom Pass. Applications outside of Islington were not included in the study and were not monitored for lack of ability to observe progress.
Some observations on examining and comparing the forms:
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