Narrator: Margaret Blackwood Houseing Association was founded in 1972 to provide housing designed and adapted from the outset to meet the widely variable needs of disabled people and their families, all within mixed community settings. We’re Scotland’s leading provider of accessible housing and also a major provider of care and support packages tailored to maintain the independence of our tenants and service users. Our vision is clear. We believe in diverse communities in which people can expand their opportunities, exercise choice and maximise their potential. Our housing and support services are available right across mainland Scotland.
Bob: I lived upstairs for about fourteen months
Lesley: You felt as if you were becoming isolated actually because you couldn’t get out.
Kirsty: My room was up the stairs, so I had to crawl up and down.
Bob: Margaret Blackwood came to us, and my occupational therapist and said ‘What do you need?’ I said, ‘Well we need a ceiling hoist, we need the wide doors.’ Obviously we’re all on one floor. Any place in the flat you can go up and get outside and you can fit in the living room to watch the television.
Lesley: This is a home, you know, we can use all the rooms, Bob can get around it, he can have a bath, and just do normal things that he hadn’t been able to do for such a long time.
Berna: I can see Kirsty being able to develop and making her own decisions about what she’s going to do during any given day, where before everything depended on me.
Kirsty: Me becoming more independent has allowed my mum more independence.
Bob: You know, your needs have been put in the centre and that thing has been built around it, so it’s a terrific thing.
Lesley: It’s like regaining a lot of what we had lost, and giving more normality back to our lives again.
Bob: This is everything here, you know, and we can live a normal life. However things go, we can live it here.
Evan: I’ve just moved into a new house in Muirhouse Bank with my partner.
Joanne: The fact that we’re here now has made life 110% better.
Margaret: We came down, had a look, and we never even saw in the house but we knew we were taking it.
Tam: I’m free now, wherever, with the chair, I can move about.
Evan: They liaised with my occupational therapist to make sure that all the adaptations that I needed were in place.
Joanne: The adaptations that’s been done to the flat for Evan has taken a lot of pressure off myself.
Tam: I get out and about a lot more than what I did in the last house.
Margaret: It’s a lot flatter, and I can take him out in the wheelchair here and he’s out more now, and of course having the back garden here it’s terrific, absolutely fabulous.
Evan: Joanne has much more time of her own to do what she wants to do, and I’m not so dependent on Joanne to be there with me when I’m doing my own thing.
Tam: The garden’s a good thing for me so as I can get out. I can get out myself now compared with before where I had to go out with the wife all the time.
Evan: It was quite a big upheaval but now that we’re here, it’s such a lovely house I don’t ever see us moving anywhere else.
Joanne: You know we couldn’t really ask for any more. Absolutely magnificent.
Evan: Going from virtually being a prisoner in your own home, to being able to come and go as you please, it’s quite a big step in such a short space of time, but you gradually get used to it, and I enjoy my time outside. Even wee silly things like feeling the sun on my face, that you never had before.
Margaret: Everything’s much easier. A lot easier. Everything’s calm, and just so easy. There’s not much more I can say it’s just absolutely fabulous.
Elliot: This is my first ever house actually. Everywhere I’ve been has been, like, shared. You know like institutionalised.
Woody: I was ready for a change of life.
Scott: The staff have helped me, but they also try to help you to be more independent as well and they encourage you to do as much as you can for yourself. But also they’ll help you if you can’t manage.
Pat: Anything that we can practically do to make their life function how ours would function, then we’re there for them.
Scott: It’s just like living in a normal street. You get on better with some neighbours than you do other ones. But it is just like a wee community idea, everybody knows everybody.
Woody: I like it because it gives me more independence to stop in the community.
Scott: Since I’ve come here it’s helped me tremendously because I used to be quite a nervous person
Elliot: I’m very confident that I don’t see myself moving out of here, and there nothing that’s going to stop me staying here I don’t think.
Scott: I’m just free to do what I want like anybody else is, and I’ve got my choices and I’ve got the care support there if I need it.
Agnes: I’ve been here for eleven years, and I’m very happy.
Margaret: It’s like a home from home.
Agnes: The support workers help you in everything. You’re never left alone.
Caroline: We’re there for support with personal care, with social activities. Making sure that the resident’s needs are met and that they’re keeping as independent as possible.
David: They’ve taken me to football. They take you out.
Margaret: If we need help we’ll ring for them. If not we’ll just try and do it ourselves.
Thomas: They’ve all got their own room. We’ve got flats in here and we’ve also got six houses.
Agnes: You can do things here that you’d never done at the hospital.
Thomas: It’s very much their home. It’s to promote their independence. A lot of them have come from, say, hospitals where they didn’t have much choice. It’s all about choice at Margaret Blackwood, and as I say, we promote that to the best of our ability.
Margaret: I’m more independent now than ever.
Agnes: We have our ups and downs, but we’re mostly one big happy family.
David: I would like to stay here a lot, very much so, because I like this place. Everybody’s very friendly with one another.
Thomas: Everybody’s condition changes. Not just people, as I say, with a disability, but everybody in general life, their condition changes, and you’ve got to be their to tailor and meet their changes head on, and still promote the independence that still may be there, but also to reassure that this is their home. That they will be here, that they will not lose their tenancy.
David: Go for it. They might find it hard at the start, but in a little bit they might find it easier when they get into a place like this, because you can get a wee bit more independence.
George: It took me a wee while to get used to it, because I was at the hostels round about, so it took me a wee while to adapt to having my own house. Then once I had adapted to having my own house, I liked it, because it’s yours, it’s a wee bit of responsibility for you. OK you’ve got all the help you want, but you’ve still got to help yourself, and that’s what I’ve tried to do and I’m getting on alright so far.
Narrator: Cala Sona Court in Wishaw is one of our oldest properties, which was groundbreaking in its day, but the original converted mansion house and prefabricated wooden cottages were outdated and thirty years on, even the new block of flats is looking tired. We have moved accessible housing design forward a long way in the last three decades. Now, Cala Sona is being redeveloped to reflect the aspirations of our tenants in the 21st century.
Situated in a stunning location looking out over the Clyde Valley, Cala Sona is being rebuilt using locally sourced sustainable materials such as Scottish larch cladding very much in keeping with the rural setting. Tomorrow’s Cala Sona will provide spacious homes within a light and airy environment. Highly efficient space and water-heating systems, deep and effective insulation and features such as passive solar spaces to provide thermal buffers will all help to keep energy costs down to a minimum.
Cala Sona Court is the first of a number of redevelopment projects and showcases the direction we are taking in innovative, accessible housing design.
Scott: It was very difficult to get a place out like this, but with care and that. The only other options are, like, a nursing home and I did not fancy going to a nursing home.
George: It gave me back my own respect, and I’ve got responsibility now.
Thomas: Everybody’s got a choice. I mean people may have a disability, but they’ve still got choice, and that’s what we do promote and it shouldn’t be any other way.
David: I just think it’s a marvellous place and I hope to stay here for a long time yet.
Margaret: I love it here, very much.
Agnes: It’s been the best thing that’s happened to me.
Berna: We’re just happy. It’s a new life; we’re having a new experience! It’s great!
Joanne: I don’t think there’s anything that they forgot about regarding the house. We couldn’t really ask for any more.
Bob: It’s just darkness to light basically. It’s chalk and cheese. It’s totally liberated us.
Evan: I would just like to thank all those within the Association that had a part in us getting this flat. I’d just like to thank them all very much.
Joanne: We consider ourselves very, very lucky.
Margaret: Well, putting it nicely, the only way I’ll get out of here is if I’m carried out in a box.
Lesley: Thanks to Margaret Blackwood, I think it’s great that our house is like these, and hopefully there’s going to be more of them for other people in similar situations, because it’s not until you’re in that situation that you realise how important it is to have a home that suits your needs, and it’s not something you think about really but it can help any of us.
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