Housing People with Mental Illnesses: The Discursive Construction of Worthiness

Abstract

This article examines how written and spoken language are used to categorize potential residents for supported housing designated for people diagnosed with severe mental illnesses. It examines the discursive work of agency representatives as they construct versions of clients as appropriate or inappropriate for housing. I show that what appear to be clear cut criteria for admission such as medication compliance, no history of violent behaviour and no active addictions are in fact contingent, locally negotiated categories that are used by agency representatives in flexible ways to determine worthiness for admission to supported housing. The categorization work of agency representatives in turn produces the meanings of the categories themselves. In doing the discursive work of categorization, agency representatives negotiate a “dilemma of caring” in which they must tread a careful path between the directives of the organizations they work for and their view of themselves as caring professionals. They also reaffirm the hegemonic bio‐medical understanding of mental illnesses as “real” biological entities.