Climb Any Mountain is committed to creating an alternative type of affordable housing in South Africa for people with learning disability and mental illness. As a society, we need to end the scandal of human rights abuses in large institutional settings and unregistered care homes. We also need to provide viable alternatives for those people living in the family home where there is an increasing need for independent supported housing for those living with parents who can no longer cope. We believe the right type of housing significantly enriches peoples quality of life, resulting in improvements in physical and psychological health of individuals.
Climb Any Mountain represents the rights of people with intellectual disability and mental illness on the Special Needs Housing Committee – a committee formed with the express goal of lobbying government to provide housing for vulnerable groups in South Africa. We continue to work in this regard, but in parallel are now able to set up a proof-of-concept supported house to demonstrate the multiple benefits of this approach to housing.
Working in partnership with the Pietermaritzburg Mental Health Society, Climb Any Mountain is creating the first of its kind supported housing in South Africa. The house will be in a community setting within easy access to transport, shops and utilities and will provide accommodation for 3-4 people with intellectual disability and mental illness. Each person will have their own bedroom but will share common areas like the kitchen and bathrooms. The house will be staffed 24/7 with support workers, trained and employed by the Pietermaritzburg Mental Health Society in a person-centred approach to care. This means that support workers will empower and enable tenants to achieve the outcomes which they themselves have set in relation to choice, rights, safety, relationships, emotional, physical and material wellbeing, personal development and community inclusion.
What is new about this approach?
- Support services will follow a person-centred approach – this is very different to ‘caring for’ someone, which is the norm of services in South Africa currently. Mencap have worked with Climb Any Mountain to develop a person-centred practice framework, tried and tested in South Africa and successfully tailored to this context.
- The supported house will belong to the tenants living there. There will be no ‘house mother’. Staff employed to support tenants will work a shift roster, including sleep-in support where needed, but it will not be their home and no belongings of staff will be kept at the house.
- The house will be based in a community setting. It will not be clustered or behind the walls of an institution; it will not be separate from society as so many existing housing options in South Africa currently are.
- We will measure the impact of this housing on each person’s quality of life, using validated tools and techniques to quantify the difference that this makes. We will also assess the financial cost of housing and compare this to a large institutional setting. We will take this to government to lobby for subsidised services and housing allowances to enable us to roll out this approach to housing country-wide.
