Building the Path to Home

If the person might lose his or her housing

The person may be at risk of losing housing because:

• the person isn't able to manage the requirements (e.g., paying rent regularly, cooking) of his or her current situation
• at times the person behaves in ways that may lead to eviction from a housing program or shelter (or the person may be asked to leave the family home if managing his or her behaviour is becoming too difficult).

What is the immediate reason?

Understand what's going on that puts housing in jeopardy:

• Is a behaviour disrupting others?
• Is there a health or safety issue?
• Was there a sudden change in the person's behaviour that doesn't make sense?
• Does the person seem agitated?
• Are others complaining? If so, about what?
• Is there a substance use issue?
• Is there a personal care issue?

What are the underlying reasons?

If there is a chance that the person may lose his or her housing, get everyone in the person's support network together, and share your information and questions. If you can't do this by yourself, look for someone who can help organize the meeting.

The composition of the group will give you an idea of what support is already in place, and what is missing.

Here are some questions to get the meeting started:

• Have there been changes in the person's environment, supports, routines or relationships? (People with developmental disabilities can be very sensitive to changes that other people may not notice.)
• Is there any pattern to the problematic behaviour? Does it happen at a particular place or time of day? Has a friend, family member or support worker been around more often--or less often?
• If there is behaviour that is problematic, try to understand what the person is communicating though his or her behaviour. Is the message related to his or her internal experience or to an external shift of some kind? Is the behaviour really an attempt to communicate about an underlying issue that is:
  • physical (e.g., a family member or support person has left or some distrubance has occurred involving the person or someone else)
  • emotional (e.g., a family member or support person has left or some disturbance has occurred involving the person or someone else)
  • environmental (e.g., a routine, such as how activities are run, has changed where the person lives or spends time)
  • related to mental health (e.g., worry, fear, agitation, symptoms of a mental health problem such as talking more to himself or herself,  confusion or a shift in mood).

Would increasing support help?

If you can't figure out what is going on, look at the person's support network and think about what is missing. Does the person have:

• a family member he or she can see? 
• a friend? 
• something to do in the day that makes him or her feel good? 
• someone to monitor his or her mental health issues? 
• some money? 
• a place to go when he or she wants to socialize? 
• enough contact with people?
• enough privacy? 

What pieces are missing?

Look at the information about support services in this guide. Think about which services may help to stabilize the person's situation. You will need to organize a meeting to talk about your options.

Next steps

For information about developing a plan to stabilize support and housing, see the Planning section.

For information about support services, see the Support Services section.

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