We love stories of people finally moving into a new home — especially after years of precarious housing or no housing at all. Imagine the relief of knowing you have a safe, permanent home! However, the transition isn’t always as easy as we’d hope. Someone who recently moved into an Indwell program didn’t sleep in their new bed for months. Another new tenant, unfamiliar with a quiet environment, ran their television loudly night and day.
Moving from homelessness or unsafe housing into a permanent apartment home can be a challenging transition, leading many individuals to mistakenly assume that people prefer or choose homelessness. Many of our tenants have a history of trauma—in childhood or adolescence, as adults, and/or as part of their experience of homelessness.
We spoke with Dr. Stephanie Dubois, a clinical psychologist with St. Joseph’s Health Care in London, about the challenges faced when moving out of homelessness and into stability, and how supportive housing can make this transition more successful.
“When you’re experiencing homelessness, the body and the brain are hyper-vigilant in keeping you safe,” Dr. Dubois says. “You are in a survival situation.”
A safe and permanent home is unfamiliar, and so a person moving into their new Indwell home may find the environment disorienting or anxiety-provoking. Behaviour such as sleeping on a couch instead of a bed or setting up a tent in one’s living room can be a way of managing the stress of the change.
“It seems counterintuitive, but if you’re used to chaos, you can’t trust that this new housing won’t be taken away from you,” she explains. “You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
We’ve noted that it can take as much as a year, or sometimes longer, for someone to adjust to their new home and to become part of the community we seek to develop within our programs.
Dr. Dubois stresses that consistency in routine and transparency in relationships can contribute to stability. The continuity of care that tenants receive from staff being on-site and interacting daily can create more trusting relationships. Offering tenants choices when interacting can also contribute to feelings of empowerment and control.
“There’s no choice in trauma,” Dr. Dubois notes. “The more voice and choice you can give to someone with a history of trauma, the more likely you are to build trust and a relationship with that person. As soon you have predictability and consistency, your system can begin to calm down so that it can rest and repair, giving you the space you need to heal. Once healing begins, you can begin to work on creating a life of self-identity, purpose, and meaning.”
Permanent supportive housing enables opportunities for this transformation from survival to stability and opportunity. We are honoured to walk alongside tenants as they make this journey.