Mental health and housing resources: the double bind to better understand the lived experiences of adults who have experienced homelessness

Cormier, É., Serrano, D., Bourgeois-Guérin, V., Sussman, T., Gauthier, M., Walsh, C., Mahmood, A., & Canham, S. L. (2022, October). Mental health and housing resources: the double bind to better understand the lived experiences of adults who have experienced homelessness [paper presentation]. Canadian Association on Gerontology 2022 Annual Scientific and Educational Meeting, Regina, SK, Canada.  

Abstract

Older persons who have experienced homelessness (OPEH) are at heightened risk of mental health challenges. This may be due, in part, to the scarcity of services adapted to their needs and the complexities associated with their life trajectories. However, approaches to support their mental health within housing resources have remained relatively unexplored. The current paper explores what 31 OPEH shared about the intersections between their lived experiences in housing resources and their mental health in the context of photovoice interviews. It is part of the Aging in the Right Place Partnership project aimed at improving understandings of what means aging in the right place for OPEH in Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver. Our thematic analysis revealed elements of housing resources that supported the mental health of some OPEH, alleviated the mental health issues of others but also elements that often exacerbated their mental health challenges. These latest experiences were typically associated with a tension between OPEH mental health needs and the approaches governing the housing resources within which they resided. More specifically, experiencing the tensions between: (1) being the subjects of their lives and the objects of care; (2) making sense of their personal story to move forward in a daily life that leave the impression of standing still and (3) creating solid roots from which to grow and living in transition created a circumstance which both exacerbated and rendered invisible the mental health challenges of OPEH. Implications for bridging the mental health needs of OPEH within housing practices are discussed.