For people with mental health problems, where they live can make a vital difference to their treatment and recovery.

Living in safe, well-maintained housing has been proven to have a positive impact on mental health.

But for some people with mental health problems, there can be multiple barriers to negotiate when trying to access or maintain the right place to call home.

Experienced support both for those seeking housing and for those already in their own homes is essential when navigating a path back to independent living.

The barriers to finding the right home

What are some of the barriers that people with mental health problems face while obtaining safe and suitable housing? 

• For those that are particularly vulnerable, sometimes a fresh start in a new area is required. This might be to move away from negative or dangerous historical influences which can derail recovery. For example, where there is a risk of a drug dealer taking over the house of a vulnerable person. This is known as ‘cuckooing’.
• Alternatively, difficulties can arise when the normal requirements for tenancy can’t be met. Such as when the individual can’t produce personal ID, has no recourse to public or personal funds, no personal or employment references, or no housing track record. The absence of any of these things can affect the quality and safety of any housing that is offered.
• For some people, learning or re-familiarising themselves with personal financial management skills alongside the other essential life skills required for independent living helps enormously.
• For others, perhaps being at the start of their recovery journey, means supported and specialised accommodation is the only viable option.

In any scenario, support is invariably needed to tackle these barriers and clients often find them impossible to manage alone. 

Bridge Housing Management – the complete wraparound service

At Bridge, we aim to support people with mental health problems who need help finding and maintaining the right accommodation, wherever they are in their recovery journey. We work with each of our clients and their dedicated support worker to negotiate any barriers.

We understand the importance of secure, high-quality, suitable accommodation, in a safe area, to the recovery process. We offer a complete wraparound service to either source housing for those who need it or provide support for those who already have their own homes. Both are backed by our comprehensive 24 hour on call service.

Our community services span a wide range of client groups and accommodations. We provide support for women-only, medium, and intensive support clients. We also provide support for clients who have found themselves in trouble with the law due to their mental health issues. Our services can be accessed within hostels, accommodation-based services, and self-contained units, depending on requirements.

By carefully matching the needs of the client with their living accommodation, we ensure they are housed in an environment conducive to recovery with access to the support services they need.

Experienced support with proven results 

Our experienced team has a proven track record spanning the last 30 years. We are experienced in working with assured tenancy, shorthold tenancies, and licenses and maintaining people in their own tenancy. We are a specialist housing management service for registered social landlords, the NHS, clinical commissioning groups, and private landlords among others.

We have a strong history of effective liaison with community partners, such as clinical teams, the police, other emergency services, and multi-agency public protection teams (MAPPS). Furthermore, we are immensely proud of our extremely low eviction rates and low anti-social social behaviour management issues.

Holistic Recovery Pathways  

Entering individuals with mental health problems into treatment and recovery programs without the right support in place, rather than supporting them in the right accommodation, can be at best distracting and at worst wholly detrimental to recovery.

Our complete wraparound housing service can stop people from falling through the gaps and give them a chance at recovery they would not find elsewhere. We recognise that no two recovery journeys or sets of individual circumstances are the same. We passionately believe in taking a holistic view for each of our clients and their living arrangements are a very important part of that picture.

All our client led community services are focused on recovery. We aim for the best long-term outcome for every client by providing the structure they need to work towards independent living.

Please help us raise awareness about this by sharing this post with your network. For more information about our housing management service or any of our community mental health services, please visit our website, or contact us. Thank you for your support.