About the Association

• about 100 are for disabled people with intensive support needs;
• over 600 are designed for tenants who are wheelchair users;
• almost 200 are built to barrier-free standards, are "wheelchair user visitable" and particularly suited to people with mobility problems;
• over 50 are operated by partner organisations;
• almost 500 homes, featuring barrier-free detailing, are ideal for older people or non-disabled people with a general housing need.

We all like to design our homes to suit the way we live. Disabled people are no different. Appropriate design and adaptations are often the key to independent living. Working with occupational therapists and, especially, our disabled tenants, our experienced Adaptations staff can modify houses and fit special equipment that can radically change lives for the better.

Although our core business is providing houses at affordable rents or for shared ownership, providing care and support services to disabled people is a key activity for us and presently employs 300 of our 350 staff. These services are offered within our sheltered and supported schemes, for disabled tenants in our independent houses, and for clients within the wider community.

We are politically active and constantly seek to highlight the housing needs of disabled people in Scotland. Through our charitable trust, the Scottish Trust for the Physically Disabled, we sponsored the 1994 Ewing Inquiry, which reported the dreadful lack of suitable housing right across Scotland. In 1999 we chaired the Housing Reference Group which produced the report A New Threshold for Disabled People? This report recorded minimal progress since Ewing and made recommendations to eliminate the persistent inequalities in housing opportunity for disabled people. It has informed our response to the Housing Bill. Our work in informing politicians and the Scottish Executive is ongoing.

One of the key issues identified in A New Threshold was the lack of expertise in designing houses and other environments to suit the needs of disabled people. To help address this shortcoming we set up Margaret Blackwood Technical Consultants Limited. This subsidiary offers the knowledge and expertise of our design staff to other organisations and individuals.

Based on a negotiated and very competitive fee structure, Margaret Blackwood Technical Consultants

• conducts detailed access audits;
• provides access solutions;
• appraises architects' and designers' plans and make suitable recommendations where necessary;
• manages projects ranging from simple adaptations to existing properties through to designing and building individual houses or whole housing schemes.