The Housing and Support Needs of Younger People with Impaired Vision

The research was carried out between March 2003 and February 2005 by a research team based at UCL, comprising Julienne Hanson, Dorota Osipovic, Kyla Moore, John Percival and Khalil Rehman.

The research had three principal components:

1. At the large (population) scale, a search was conducted into existing data sources on the prevalence of impaired vision among adults of working age, in order to estimate the numbers of people affected.
2. At the medium (organisation) scale, 23 London based housing and service providers participated in in-depth interviews and another 67 stakeholder organisations from Tyneside, the West Midlands and the Bristol area attended workshop events to address the question of how to improve housing and support services for visually impaired adults.
3. Finally, at the small (individual) scale, 121 visually impaired adults living in London participated in a questionnaire-based survey of their housing and support needs. Thirty representative informants were subsequently re-interviewed, in-depth, to gain additional insights into the circumstances of their daily life. The London-based study was supplemented by 64 telephone interviews and focus groups with 46 adults living in Tyneside, the West Midlands and the Bristol area. The aim of this extension to the London study was to identify the common themes that underpin the provision of housing and support services for visually impaired adults living in England today, and to gain an understanding of any specific, local issues that need to be addressed by housing and service providers.

The objective of the research as a whole was to provide information and knowledge that will enable mainstream and specialist housing and service providers to meet the needs of their visually impaired clients more effectively.