Letter: More Available Accommodation Required for Autistic and Disabled People

Published on: 16 Dec, 2021
Updated on: 16 Dec, 2021

From: M Durant

I have noticed that in the Surrey area there could be a better provision of self-contained accommodation allowing autistic adults to live independently.

There is a lot of accommodation, ie self-contained affordable flats for retirees aged 55 and over, but I feel that this accommodation could be opened up to autistic adults of a younger age.

I don’t understand why there is the 55 age cut-off point as people retire at 66. The cut-off could be lowered to 40 so as to open up the accommodation to single disabled adults and free up space on the council’s housing register.

There are some residential housing shared setups that cater for autistics but there are no self-contained affordable flats for autistic people who are fairly independent and just need some support but not a lot of it. Self-contained flats in the area are very expensive.

The accommodation should also be available to autistic and disabled people both on and off benefits.