This article by members of Mind’s Research team (Dr Lauren Gibson, Helena Roennfeldt, Edith Botchway) and members of Mind’s Lived Experience team (Katie Larsen, Deb Carlon) was originally published in Volume 38 – Issue 1 of Parity. Thank you to the Council to Homeless Persons for permission to republish this article.
A house is just a physical building, but what makes it a home?
At the most basic level, a house provides shelter, a sense of stability, and physical safety, while a home is a space of relational safety, security, love, connection with others and a place to belong.
We all need and deserve stable and secure housing —it is core to our human rights, but equally, we need a space that is our home, a place that offers refuge, nurture and safety —emotionally, culturally, spiritually and mentally, as well as physically. This is foundational to our emotional well-being and pivotal to our experience of citizenship and social inclusion.
It is a reflection of our society that people experiencing mental health challenges are disproportionately impacted by insecure housing and homelessness. Research shows that people experiencing mental health challenges are 25 per cent more likely to experience homelessness, and mental health issues are the most common reason for accessing housing crisis services. ₁
Insecure housing, in turn, exacerbates levels of distress with a clear link between people who access mental health services, those who are experiencing insecure housing, and the risk of homelessness. ₂
People experiencing mental health challenges are also more likely to experience impacts of exclusion such as marginalisation, stigma, loneliness, discrimination, rejection, shame, and social disconnection. ₃ This is even more so where people are experiencing other forms of marginalisation relating to their gender identity, sexuality, culture, faith, ethnicity and disability.
Marginalisation extends beyond access to housing and includes experiences of exclusion within community environments in which people with mental health challenges are living. This is a far cry from meeting the very human need for love, connection, belonging and community. It can also impact the availability of and access to supported housing options due to community resistance. ₄
The pathways from deinstitutionalisation to community supported living for people with mental health challenges has been slow and incomplete. We have much work to do for people with mental health challenges to feel a sense of belonging and to feel welcomed as part of the communities in which they live.₅
This paper reflects on the importance of home for people with mental health challenges as a place of community and connection and, drawing from lived experience led and informed approaches, discusses specific ways by which our communities can be more nurturing and welcoming for people with mental health concerns.
What are the challenges to a sense of home and community?
Initially, a home starts with stable housing. People with mental health challenges often face financial barriers to accessing suitable housing, and there is a shortage of appropriate housing options due to decreasing affordability. For a proportion of people with mental health challenges, supported housing may be needed but local options may have limited choices.
The NDIA plays a vital role in providing housing for people with psychosocial disabilities resulting from the impact of experiences of mental health challenges. As part of this role, the goal of support through NDIS is for people to get the support they need to have greater choice and control, including choice about where and with whom they live.
Integrating mental health and housing services within the community can give people the support they need to maintain stable housing, with evidence indicating that, for some supported housing participants, it may provide a sense of safety, control, and stability. ₆
Housing and living support should strengthen connections to family, friends, and community. However, the capacity to feel connected to the community is often impacted by stigma manifesting as NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard). This presents as communities resisting the development of supported housing options due to a perception of risk to themselves and their families by having people with mental health challenges living in their communities.
Ostracising people with mental health challenges and the services established to provide support and housing within certain communities perpetuates negative stereotypes and creates barriers to social inclusion and access to the support people need to recover.
The issue is a complex challenge that requires careful consideration and proactive solutions, including education, policy reforms, community involvement, and partnerships. This should be informed by the experiences, stories and expertise of the people most impacted — those seeking a safe and secure home. It requires a collective effort to break down the barriers preventing people with mental health challenges from accessing safe and stable housing.
Stigma continues because of fear based on myths and stereotypes associated with experiencing mental health challenges. These myths are perpetuated in the media. This has created a culture of silence, segregation and shame, impacting people experiencing mental health challenges. Stigma and negative stereotypes contribute to a lack of empathy, which may impact an individual’s ability to find housing, work, and be socially included. ₇
In essence, it creates discrimination stemming from a perceived negative difference between people with mental health challenges that leads to a desire to stay away from this group of people and the justification of separation, suppression and coercive control. The most effective way to address stigma and discrimination is through contact, connection, breaking down barriers and building understanding to ensure a more balanced, nuanced and compassionate picture of mental health challenges. ₈
Breaking down stigma and negative stereotypes is needed if we want a truly healthier and inclusive society that upholds the human rights of all people and demonstrates compassion, care and connection for all people experiencing challenges, vulnerability and marginalisation.
How to create a loving, connected community
Following extensive consultations with people with lived experience, Mind Australia developed a foundational document for Lived Experience Led services: Community and Connection: Transformative Lived Expertise-Led Approaches. The document outlines relational elements of healing environments needed to create a safe‑enough space, a sense of belonging and mutuality that are important in any setting.
The critical elements of the connection and community model identify the significance of building the community’s capacity to love, care for, respect, embrace, accept, and support people who may be perceived as ‘different’.
People with mental health challenges living in the community and in supported housing will have more opportunity to recover and understand their experiences within the context of their lives if they are held with support, connection, love and compassion by their community. This kind of approach supports a community led experience that builds an expectation that all peoples’ human rights are valued and that those most vulnerable can be supported and held by those around them — any one of us can find ourselves needing these kinds of support at different points in our lives.
It requires us all to develop the capacity to embrace the concept of love and connection in how we live alongside each other which has been demonstrated to significantly help improve the dominant feelings of shame, loneliness, and struggle for equity in people living with mental health concerns. ₉
So, what does it mean to uphold the concept of love and belonging within our communities? The following points are given for consideration and reflect the importance of healing environments and relationships in building connection and community:
- Genuine respect for others
Genuine respect for people with mental health challenges involves openness, listening, and getting to know people. ₁₀ It also involves showing empathy and treating people with kindness, seeing them, and valuing their human dignity, opinions, and rights.
- Embrace differences
Embracing our differences requires accepting that no two humans are the same and being willing to celebrate and value the uniqueness of others, including their backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. It involves recognising that diversity enriches our lives and fosters growth rather than seeing differences as obstacles. Building relationships with people with experiences that are different from our own can deeply enrich our understanding of the human experience and enhance our value for connections and community.
- Develop a capacity for flexibility and tolerance
This invites us to adapt to different perspectives, behaviours, and situations without immediate judgment or frustration. It involves being open-minded, patient, and willing to accommodate others’ needs, beliefs, or ways of thinking, even when they differ from our own. Flexibility and tolerance enhance mutual understanding, reduce conflict, and promote harmonious communities.
Stigmatisation and exclusion are important societal problems. In our complex world, a sense of belonging, connection, and community is not only an issue for people with mental health challenges; it is a human rights and social justice issue.
To create more opportunities for everyone to have a sense of belonging, we need to begin in our own lives —in our neighbourhoods, workplaces, and families. We can build community and connection in whatever ways we can – in ‘our own patch’.
Considering the soaring number of people who experience mental health challenges, it is likely that we know, or we are, or we could be people with mental health challenges in our communities. This paper gives a potential foundation for creating spaces to celebrate differences and build inclusive spaces where we all belong and have a place to truly call home.
Endnotes
1. Australian Institute of Health Welfare 2023, Specialist Homelessness Services Annual Report 2022–23.
2. Brackertz N, Borrowman L, Roggenbuck C, Pollock S and Davis E 2020, Trajectories: the Interplay Between Housing and Mental Health Pathways: Final Research Report; Carrere J, VásquezVera H, Pérez-Luna A, Novoa AM and Borrell C 2022, ‘Housing Insecurity and Mental Health: the Effect of Housing Tenure and the Coexistence of Life Insecurities’, Journal of Urban Health, 99(2), 268–276.
3. Birken M, Chipp B, Shah, P, Olive, RR, et al 2023, ‘Exploring the Experiences of Loneliness in Adults with Mental Health Problems: A Participatory Qualitative Interview Study’, Plos one, 18(3), e0280946.
4. Supported housing refers to a combination of housing with support that enables a person to live long term in the community. It can be communal, or a single residence. The NDIS provides supported housing options for people experiencing psychosocial disability resulting from their mental health challenges in Australia.
5. Shevellar L, Sherwin J and Barringham N 2014, ‘The Human Search for Belonging’, Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 16(1), 2–18.
6. Watson J, Fossey E and Harve C 2019, ‘A Home But How to Connect with Others? A Qualitative Meta‑synthesis of Experience of People with Mental Illness Living in Supported Housing’, Health & Social Care in the Community, 27(3), 546–564.
7. Corrigan PW, Bink AB, Fokuo JK and Schmidt A 2015, ‘The Public Stigma of Mental Illness Means a Difference Between You and Me’, Psychiatry Research, 226(1), 186–191.
8. Rössler W 2016, ‘The Stigma of Mental Disorders: A Millennia‑long Histor of Social Exclusion and Prejudices’, EMBO reports, 17(9), 1250–1253.
9. Watson 2019, op cit.
10. Ibid.