1. Housing Solutions
Listening, learning and acting on consumer and worker experience to inform modern mental health approaches to housing…..what works

2. Housing solutions….. This session will cover: What people tell us
Examples of what’s possible when you act on this information to design services and solutions in the housing area

3. A Mental Health and Addictions Support Service Provider
A specialist Registered Community Housing Provider (CHP)

4. Comcare credentials in the housing space
Comcare provides:
133 permanent tenancies
An additional 65 transitional housing flats/homes, housing 246 people last year
Has built 83 single flats in the past 8 years across 16 sites
Has 3 x 4 single person flat complexes under construction today
Provides Housing Support services for an additional 480 people a year

5. housing significantly impacts on peoples wellbeing and long term stability…. more than any other non clinical element
Taking what we knew about the fundamental importance of housing, and the consistently negative experiences and stories from people we worked with, we stepped fully into the housing space to make the changes we wished to see…

6. What people shared with us
Each time I get unwell I lose everything. My flat, my belongings, sometimes friends and family end up sorting it. I end up in just more debt to MSD. I end up feeling down and cant see a way back.
I hate those big complexes of flats you get put in. Scary places with lots of people with troubles like me or using it as a place to trade. I wish I could live in a normal flat but I can’t afford it any more….I used to be able to but now that’s not an option.
I hate having no privacy outside, or no quiet outside spaces to go to. The flats are usually pretty grotty but I guess that’s all there is for people like me. People think I cant look after a nice place, but I’ve never had one to try.

7. And …… No-one really wants to hear my real story or hear what I want.
Trauma/pain talk seems to scare support staff and clinicians. I don’t talk about stuff anymore as people just offer me meds.
It’s not rocket science. I want what you want…a home, a job and people who care about me

8. Staff TELL US
Poverty seems as much the problem as mental illness or addictions
I often see people not being encouraged to take on a challenge, in case it adds stress and destabilises them…but that’s the real world if you want to achieve in life.
The way people are treated by welfare services is awful and it feels worse to me when it improves when I advocate /accompany them…what does that say to them…
The “system” is really complex. No normal person could navigate it let alone someone unwell or vulnerable…who is the system designed for?

9. Examples of Success by responding to what people said would assist them
Housing First
Housing Support Services including Home Rescue / Sustaining Tenancies work
Residential (Recovery) Services
Social Housing

10. Housing first principles inform all housing approaches, not just those for the long term homeless
Immediate access to housing with no housing readiness conditions
Consumer choice and self-determination
A harm reduction and recovery-orientation approach
Individualised and person-driven supports
Social and community integration
It’s about ending homelessness – not managing it

11. Christchurch Housing First
Collaboration multiplies effectiveness
Connect with the people to hear what they say
Employ people with heart
Keep “rules” from systems and employing organisations to a minimum
Deliver results …make system change

12. Housing support services: responding to what we heard about repeated loss and the importance of a Home as fundamental to wellbeing
Housing Facilitation, including navigating and screening for public and transitional housing
Home Rescue, 10 years of experience as a specialist forerunner to the MSD Sustaining Tenancies approach

13. Alternate model of residential support
Permanent good quality housing is provided by CHPs, HNZC and Regional Authorities as for any person in high housing need.
Access to specialised tenancy supports, such as sustaining tenancies is supported
MH and AOD health funded services provide flexible, needs based, home based recovery and rehabilitation support

14. Social (public) housing: a community housing provider response to what people told us
Small complexes
Privacy outdoors
Well soundproofed
Quality fit-out
Energy efficient, low R&M
Permanent IRR tenancies

15. Kay Fletcher
Chief Executive
Comcare Trust