Housing for people with schizophrenia is actually a fairly complex subject. I'm going to do this in two parts, or rather from two perspectives. This article is based on my experience since I have been taking medication. The second will be from the perspective of increasing public concern, in Canada at least, for the homeless mentally ill, who generally are not on medication.
People with schizophrenia who cannot work full time and be self-supporting generally need more than just housing, they need a home, and they often require continuing support to live in their home. Young people experiencing a first psychotic episode are usually living with their parents. When it is clear they have a diagnosis of schizophrenia and suffer some disability from it they then become eligible for disability benefits.
Usually everybody moves out of their parents' house. For some people with schizophrenia that may not be until their parents pass away. There are quite a number of people in their thirties and forties living in their parents' house, sometimes in basement apartments. For many it is a very workable arrangement. They can borrow the car and their parents can monitor symptoms, and provide some structure and as much support as needed. To some degree government policies have encouraged this kind of arrangement because they do not provide comparable services.
Supportive housing is usually available in most communities. There are government financed group homes and private boarding homes. There is a considerable difference between the two though. There are no boarding homes in Guelph where I live but they are common throughout Ontario and across North America. These are private for profit businesses where the owner provides room and board for a monthly fee, essentially making a profit from the monthly disability allowance someone is receiving, leaving an individual roughly $100 each month for spending money in Ontario. There is usually very little regulation of such boarding homes, and they can be very squalid, although the better ones work quite well, in part because they usually can maintain compliance to medication and prevent substance abuse. Group homes provide up to 24 hour trained staff on site. These are often focused on rehabilitation with the goal that residents will move out on their own with the living skills they have developed in the group home.
Supported housing is considerably more independent than supportive housing. An individual chooses their own living space paying rent with the disability benefits they receive, and a case manager or other
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