Saturday, 15 January 2005 - 12:00 PM

This presentation is part of: Poster Session II

Conceptualizing Community: A Comparison of Neighborhood Characteristics of Supportive Housing for Persons with Psychiatric and Developmental Disabilities

Background & Purpose: Common to the fields of psychiatric disability and developmental disability is the movement for normalization as the guiding approach for maintaining community living. In both fields, supportive housing (SH), defined broadly as mainstreamed housing with appropriate services and supports, has been developed to promote community integration. Research on SH has been field-specific, focusing primarily on the services provided in these settings rather than on environmental factors associated with housing location. Using an ecological approach, this cross-field comparative study examines the neighborhood characteristics of publicly-funded SH for people with psychiatric and developmental disabilities in a demographically diverse metropolitan area. Based on prior conceptual work and research, the study focuses on income diversity, race/ethnic diversity, public safety, stability, and spatial dispersion as neighborhood characteristics conducive to community integration.

Method: Administrative databases provided residential addresses of SH residents. There were 1,652 residents with psychiatric disability (MH) living in 254 different SH locations and 1,716 residents with developmental disability (DD) living in 749 locations. Among MH residents, 424 lived in supported independent housing (SIL) and 1228 lived in group home (GH) settings. The 2000 U.S. census and city’s police department database provided information on neighborhood characteristics. Neighborhood was operationalized as a census blockgroup and characteristics were measured according to variability in median household income, race/ethnic composition, crime rate, percent of home ownership, and household type. Geographic Information System (GIS) technology was used to generate maps displaying the location of SH residents in relation to income and race/ethnic diversity, public safety, stability, and spatial dispersion across neighborhoods. Statistical analyses compare neighborhood characteristics between the two disability groups and between MH residents in GH and in SIL.

Results: MH residents were more likely to live in racially/ethnically diverse neighborhoods (45 % vs. 32%), but less likely to live in safe (48 % vs. 67%) and stable neighborhoods (19 % vs. 33 %) than DD residents. MH residents lived in less economically diverse neighborhoods (41% vs. 49%) than DD residents, with proportionately more MH than DD residents living in neighborhoods with low median household income. The spatial concentration of MH residents, standardized to account for population density, was 11 times that of DD residents. Among the MH group, GH residents lived in neighborhoods with less income diversity (40% vs. 46%), less safety (46% vs. 53%), and less stability (18 % vs. 22 %) than SIL residents. GH residents were twice as spatially concentrated as SIL residents.

Implications: The 1999 U.S. Supreme Court Olmstead decision mandated the community integration of individuals with disabilities. The study suggests a useful analytic method for comparing neighborhood characteristics of SH residents in order to assess the effectiveness of this housing intervention for two disability groups in achieving integration. The study found DD housing is more mainstreamed and located in more desirable neighborhoods than MH housing. By correlating neighborhood characteristics with resident outcomes, future research can examine the extent to which environmental factors promote community integration among individuals with disabilities.

See more of Poster Session II
See more of Oral and Poster

See more of Celebrating a Decade of SSWR (January 13 - 16, 2005)