Why a safe home matters for mental health

It’s incredibly hard to recover from a mental health crisis without somewhere safe to live. 

Stable housing is fundamental to mental health, wellbeing, dignity and participating in communities, workplaces and schools. 

That’s why this morning, Mental Health Australia was pleased to join Homelessness Australia at Parliament House in Canberra for an event jointly hosted by the Parliamentary Friends of Housing and Parliamentary Friends of Mental Health, and attended by MPs, Senators and their staff. Together, we highlighted the essential link between housing and mental health.

We are supporting Homelessness Australia’s calls on federal and state governments to deliver 20,000 additional housing places and establish a national tenancy sustainment program for people living with psychosocial disability.

Data shows more than 31,000 people are caught in a cycle of crisis, moving between acute mental health services, homelessness, crisis accommodation, hospitals and, in some cases, the justice system.

Health professionals describe "discharges of despair", where people leave care into insecure housing or homelessness, only to experience a return of their mental health crisis.

Homelessness Australia's Breaking the Cycle report outlines how Housing First and supportive housing models can help end this revolving door by providing people with permanent housing linked to the support they need to both sustain their housing and support their mental health. 

Right now, governments are reforming the NDIS, considering priorities for foundational supports, and negotiating the next National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Agreement. These provide critical opportunities to boost access to psychosocial supports for the nearly 500,000 people with severe or moderate mental health needs who are currently missing out. 

As these reforms take shape, access to safe housing alongside mental health support must be recognised as central to effective care and support, not treated as a separate issue.

Providing a safe home, linked with the right supports, is not a side issue to mental health reform. It is one of the most powerful levers governments have to improve outcomes, reduce demand on crisis services and support better mental health for everyone in the community.