Safety and security in small-scale recovery housing for people with severe mental illness: an inner-city case study.

OBJECTIVE: The authors examined the lived experience of residents with severe mental illness in a small-scale recovery-housing building in the inner city. They attempting to identify and understand factors that influenced adjustment and stability.

METHODS: Four focus groups with 17 residents and participant observation with residents, case managers, and supervisory staff were conducted longitudinally over a two-year period. Data were analyzed according to the tenets of qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS: Safety and security was the most prominent issue raised by residents. Serious concerns about this issue could be divided into three categories: threats raised by the behavior of other residents (and their associates), threats raised by strangers, and threats related to loss of self-control. A related theme involved ongoing tension between residents' desire for communal connections and their conflicting desire for a bounded private life.

CONCLUSIONS: Ongoing attention to the issue of safety and security should be a key component of recovery-oriented housing in inner-city residential areas. Further research may need to compare the experience of safety and security among residents living in recovery housing with the experience of those in independent scatter-site housing and traditional congregate housing.