Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Housing, Income Support And Mental Health: Points Of Disconnection, Cheryl Forchuk, Libbey Joplin, Ruth Schofield, Rick Csiernik, Carolyne Gorlick, Katherine Turner

Rick Csiernik

There exists a disconnection between evolving policies in the policy arenas of mental health, housing, and income support in Canada. One of the complexities associated with analysing the intersection of these policies is that federal, provincial, and municipal level policies are involved. Canada is one of the few developed countries without a national mental health policy and because of the federal policy reforms of the 1970s, the provincial governments now oversee the process of deinstitutionalization from the hospital to the community level. During this same period the availability of affordable housing has decreased as responsibility for social housing has been …