Blog by James Harrison – Tenant at Fairoak Housing Association

James would like to tell you about how we used the Good Lives Manifesto at Fairoak Housing.

Earlier this year a group of tenants from Fairoak went to the Learning Disability England Conference in Leeds.

During the conference we were told about the Good Lives Manifesto which asked for an inclusive election.

As a group of tenants we discussed how important it was for our views to be heard by our local M.Ps.

When the General Election was announced we got in touch with all of the candidates from the local political parties and asked them if they would adopt the Good Lives Manifesto.

We had positive feedback from the Labour Party, the Green Party and the Lib Dem candidates who were keen to learn more and some of them wanted to visit us.

Pippa Smith, our local Labour Candidate, visited Fairoak office and answered questions about how the Labour Party would make sure there was enough supported housing for people who needed it; how they would make social care work for everyone and how to make sure benefits were fair and that people with disabilities wouldn’t get penalised.

We enjoyed our chat with Pippa and felt we were heard by her.

Following our meeting we spoke about the elections and invited tenants to come and discuss the different political party’s manifestos.  

On Election Day six tenants voted for the first time, all of them said that they had a positive experience and felt as if they had helped make a decision on how the country is run.

After the election the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron, came to visit us. We asked him questions about how the Lib Dems would help with supported housing and social care.

We also talked to him about health inequalities and how he could help to make sure autistic people and people with learning disabilities receive the care they need.

We also asked about his election campaign and if he felt it was accessible. He told us that all of his leaflets are written in a way that people can read easily and quickly as people are busy and need to read things quickly.

He asked us about our experiences of going to the doctors. Following our meeting he contacted our local ICC and the Chair of the Primary Care Network.

Both took our points very seriously and have started to train their staff teams and have also appointed one of our tenants onto their patient participation group.

I think that the Good Lives Manifesto has been really useful in helping us to influence the issues that we think are important to our tenants.