Written evidence submitted by Homeshare UK, Shared Lives Plus [DPH 023]

This response to the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee’s consultation on Disabled people in the housing sector is from Shared Lives Plus, the strategic membership organisation for Shared Lives representing nearly 150 services and 10,000 carers.

Shared Lives is a model of social care in which a person with a learning disability, moves in with or regularly visits a Shared Lives carer. The two are matched for compatibility by their local Shared Lives service, which recruits, trains and approves the carers and provides them ongoing support. Together, the carer and the person they support share home, family and community life.

We believe that the government could help ensure that many more disabled people have safe, suitable housing by investing in the growth of the Shared Lives model. Shared Lives’ emphasis on relationships and ordinary home life is proven to create better outcomes for people with disabilities – it is consistently rated as one of the highest quality forms of social care by the CQC and by the people it supports.

But for a model of such quality and potential, Shared Lives is far too small. Although there is an existing service in almost every Local Authority area with the will and capacity to grow to support more people, Shared Lives accounts for just under 1% of total long-term social care in the UK by people supported, and just over 0.5% by workforce.

Because Shared Lives takes place in a home setting, growing the model to ensure that more disabled people have better housing would not require the same massive capital spending as building new housing stock at scale. Instead it would require tapping into existing assets and infrastructure in the community – those people that have a spare room and the desire for flexible, caring work at home. This can be achieved by:

• Fostering a “Shared Lives first” leadership philosophy at a local level.
• Raising awareness of the model amongst professional stakeholders including referral partners
• Implementing a large-scale recruitment campaign of new Shared Lives carers
• Removing policy barriers to increased adoption of the Shared Lives model.

Foremost among the barriers for the committee to consider, would be in expanding eligibility for the Disability Facilities Grant so that potential Shared Lives carers, who want to support disabled people in their home, have access to the resources to make necessary adjustments in their homes.

We would welcome a collaboration between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Department for Health and Social Care to explore unlocking Shared Lives’ potential, so that many more disabled people can experience not only accessible and adaptable housing but a place they can truly feel at home.

September 2023