Where you live and who you live with matters: Housing and mental health

ABSTRACT

This article considers the relationship between where a person lives and who they live with and their mental health and well-being. In particular, this article considers the regional locale as an important factor in understanding the perspective of a person with lived experience of mental illness. This article questions the influential, yet somewhat narrow, argument that living in the community and in the family home is somehow better for people with mental illness. The arguments presented in this article illustrate that for some people with mental illness, the issues of stigma, autonomy, and lack of alternatives (choice) are just as prevalent for them now, living in the community, as when they lived in institutions. The assumption that place alone can redress the lack of choice and autonomy is unfounded.

KEYWORDS:

• Community integration
• deinstitutionalization
• mental health