A few weeks ago, four members of staff from the Aspire office headed down to Crawley to build flat-pack furniture and get everything ready in our new property.
On Thursday 22nd July, the Aspire Crawley House was officially opened when local MP, Henry Smith, came along to see our work for himself and meet the first tenant, Mark, pictured right.
The Crawley flat, provided through our relationship with The Guinness Partnership, has two bedrooms, a fully accessible kitchen with rise and fall work surfaces, hob and sink and a wet room. As with all our houses, it’s been designed so that anyone, regardless of the level of their injury, can be independent whilst they are living there. With around a quarter of all those who are injured being discharged to nursing homes, and still more people living in houses that have yet to be adapted, the Aspire House in Crawley is going to be in huge demand.
Mark was injured earlier this year and has a home he is hoping to get adapted so that it’s suitable for him again. But in the meantime, he’ll be calling the Aspire flat home. Until Aspire got involved, Mark’s only option was going to be to live in a care home, a situation he’s delighted to have avoided.
Henry Smith MP was impressed with what he saw: “With someone being paralysed by spinal cord injury every 8 hours, accessible housing is obviously important. And I’m delighted that Crawley can boast the 21stAspire property and showcase what can be done to improve the lives of those, like Mark, who find themselves in this situation. At the same time, I know there’s more that government can do; I know, for example, that Aspire worked on the new Disabled Facilities Grant best practice guide some time ago and that it has yet to be published. I’ll be talking to my colleagues in Westminster to see what can be done about that.”