Supported housing consists of both a house and support. Therefore, in order to evaluate supported housing we need to consider the relationship between people and their houses and homes, and find a way of assessing whether this meets the criterion of improving well-being. It was argued in the last chapter that previous evaluations of supported housing have neglected the home, even though it is where we spend most of our time, is integral to our achievement of well-being, and is an integral part of the supported housing ‘package’. Therefore, this chapter seeks to add to the discussion of well-being in the previous chapter by focusing on the home and its impact on the well-being of those who live in it.

The term ‘house’ has been used to denote a physical dwelling and there is an important research and policy focus on the impact of physical houses on people with support needs, as we shall see in the following chapters. What kinds of physical houses do people need and how are they different from the houses needed or desired by others? At the same time, there is a realisation that houses are not just physical objects, but have symbolic, emotional and psychological dimensions. The home is a major source of our well-being as it is the locus of our most intimate and private moments and of our closest relationships, as well as a source of identity and self-esteem. The problem with existing research is that the physical and the other elements of home have been examined separately and there is a lack of a holistic framework in which the two kinds of factors can be considered together. The need for such a framework is urgent if we are to understand the impact that houses and homes have on the people who live in them. This general point is particularly apposite for our present purpose in this book. In supported housing, both sets of factors are likely to be important to residents, and there may be trade-offs between the physical and other dimensions. For example, the introduction of adaptations to enable better physical functioning in a house may have an unwanted symbolic meaning for the resident by signalling difference, and may destroy the identity and self-esteem that the resident may have felt.