From psychiatric hospital to supported housing: the Neami Community Housing Program, Melbourne, Australia, 1995-2008

In 1995, a small non-government organisation called Neami was funded to provide housing and support for 30 former long-stay patients from a local psychiatric institution in Melbourne. Aged between early 20s and early 50s and diagnosed with schizophrenia or related conditions, the patients had been assessed by clinical staff as being unable to cope in the community without intensive support. As the institution in which they had been inpatients was closing, new forms of supported housing had to be found. Thirteen years later, many of the people discharged in 1995 remain in the housing provided through this program... [Introduction]