Single-site Supportive Housing: Tenant Perspectives

Abstract

We examined tenants' experiences and perception living in a single-site supportive housing. Recent evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of secure housing with linked voluntary support services as a successful in enabling people with high vulnerabilities to exit homelessness and sustain housing. Scholars and policy-makers continue to debate the merits of scattered site housing with person centred support, on the one hand, and single-site supportive housing with onsite support, on the other. The manuscript is based on survey and qualitative data with 120 tenants in a single-site supportive housing: (n = 60) formerly homeless and (n = 60) allocated housing because of low to moderate income. The results show that tenant experience single-site supportive housing as home; for many single-site supportive housing constitutes community. Conversely, some design and security features of single-site supportive housing undermined tenants autonomy and feeling of home. Moreover, close contact with other tenants meant that single-site supportive housing was also anti-community.