Single-site Supportive Housing: Tenant Perspectives

Abstract

We examined tenants' experiences and perception living in a single-site supportive housing. Recent evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of secure housing with linked voluntary support services as a successful in enabling people with high vulnerabilities to exit homelessness and sustain housing. Scholars and policy-makers continue to debate the merits of scattered site housing with person centred support, on the one hand, and single-site supportive housing with onsite support, on the other. The manuscript is based on survey and qualitative data with 120 tenants in a single-site supportive housing: (n = 60) formerly homeless and (n = 60) allocated housing because of low to moderate income. The results show that tenant experience single-site supportive housing as home; for many single-site supportive housing constitutes community. Conversely, some design and security features of single-site supportive housing undermined tenants autonomy and feeling of home. Moreover, close contact with other tenants meant that single-site supportive housing was also anti-community.

Keywords:

• Supportive housing
• home
• community

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The article is based on research funded by the Queensland Government, Department of Housing and Public Works.