Housing

Rethink Mental Illness fights for the right for everyone severely affected by mental illness to have a place they can call home. A home that is safe, secure, and with access to the right care and support for them.

The long journey home

Having a safe and stable place to call home is vital for everyone’s mental health. But this is not a reality for many. Only 58% of people currently in contact with community mental health services live in stable and appropriate accommodation.

Supported housing has a pivotal role to play in addressing this. The services create positive outcomes for systems as well as people, reducing homelessness, enabling hospital discharge, and saving the public purse around £12k-15k per person per year.

However, too many people have poor experiences during, before and following a stay in supported housing – and that is if they’re able to access this support in the first place.

Working with New Philanthropy Capital, we’ve created a new model to help us better understand the current problems, to help us identify and be a part of the solution. This is the basis for our new report, The long journey home: understanding and improving the supported housing system for people living with mental illness.

We want to keep talking to national and local stakeholders who care about getting supported housing right. If this is you, contact harvey.crawford@rethink.org.

Download the Long Journey Home Report

Supported Housing Bill

The quality of supported housing available to people severely affected by mental illness is not where it needs to be. When the government announced the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill in March 2023 to improve the quality of supported accommodation, Rethink Mental Illness welcomed the introduction of national standards.

Throughout the various stages of the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill working towards becoming a law, we produced many briefings for parliamentarians to ensure it is fit for purpose.

Our recommendations and concerns regarding the Bill include (and are not limited to):

The needs of people severely affected by mental illness must be reflected in the national standards of support.
A minimisation of the potential cost and admin burden for providers of supported housing.
Recognition and support of the role supported housing has in the health and care sector.
Standards and guidance must, where possible, join up with existing needs assessments through co-operation with key partners in local authorities and the NHS.
It must address the diversity of the supporting housing sector and its users, ensuring a range of safe, stable, affordable and high-quality housing options in the short and long-term.

Making good on a promise

When someone living with a severe mental illness requires long-term care, it is vital they have access to a good quality services offering safety and security within their community.

All too often this isn’t the case, with a concerning decline in NHS-provided rehabilitation services in recent years. As one mother told us about her son’s experience:

He was sent for care 30 miles away. It was the worst possible thing for him. He was the only young black man in the area, surrounded by countryside rather than the city buildings he had grown up with and felt comfortable around. Being sent so far from home sent his paranoia through the roof and he had begun to feel suicidal.

In collaboration with the Royal College of Psychiatrists, we called on policy-makers and service providers to commit to putting an end to inappropriate out-of-area rehabilitation placements.

Read the In Sight and In Mind report