Making Moves

My name is Dylan Cummings. I am a wheelchair basketball commentator / journalist.

Before I was in student accommodation in central Edinburgh. It was a wheelchair accessible student studio flat. So the surfaces were lowered, table surfaces, and it was wheelchair accessible and level access.

Every single year when my contract ended, I tried to find private housing through various housing associations, I contacted the council.

It made me feel very anxious.

It made me feel like there was sort of no hope. Like, for a good couple of years, I used to sign up to a college course, just so I could ensure that I could stay in the student accommodation.

Six months before my contract ended in this July, I knew it was time. It was like “right, time to move on, time to find somewhere else a bit more permanent”.

I felt very anxious and I felt quite hopeless, to be honest. First and foremost, I wanted the property to be wheelchair accessible. I wanted it to have level access. And I wanted it, to manage in the property independently.

I looked at Housing Options Scotland online, applied for it and then they said they would contact me within five weeks with a housing broker.

And then I got contacted before five weeks and it was Moira who was my broker. And then right from the first moment I talked to Moira, you know, she was caring. It felt like I was an actual client of hers, that I wasn’t just a number.

I felt like I was gonna get forgotten about by the council. And Housing Options Scotland, they’d done a great job to reassure me.

I was chatting with the council and they said that there was an option for me to be put in temporary accommodation. It could be a B&B, a hotel or a hostel type thing. And that made me very worried ‘cause I didn’t want to be in a hotel ‘cause obviously you can’t cook for yourself in a hotel and you have to pay for meals and stuff.

And in a hostel, you just don’t know what environment you’re gonna be put into, so that made me very worried.

And I remember having a conversation with Moira and she reassured me that, you know, that if Housing Options Scotland found that a hostel wasn’t gonna be suitable for me, that they would fight my corner and they’d make sure that I get placed in a suitable environment for me.

The council managed to find a ground floor flat that they said they thought would be wheelchair accessible. From what the council said to me, they made it out that I sort of had to accept this and that if I didn’t accept this, then there wouldn’t be another option.

So I remember speaking to Moira about that and she says, “Oh no, don’t worry about it. We’ll send somebody to go with you.” And she sent Tessa.

And Tessa was a lovely woman and that, and very reassuring.

I’m really glad to be in this new property. It’s really affordable for me. There’s a lot more space. My pal can stay with me sometimes or my family.

It’s a nice neighbourhood. It’s fairly quiet.

I’m so, so glad that everything’s worked out and I wouldn’t be here without Housing Options Scotland, and you’ve all been so helpful and it’s been great.