Abstract
Many long-term patients in psychiatric hospitals might be discharged if they could have got a suitable accommodation together with sound living environment and necessary social supports. Taking it into consideration, this study intends to clarify dwelling conditions of people with mental disability and considers effective measures to ensure them of a better housing. We addressed two sorts of questionnaires to the several medical institutions in order to grasp their efforts in this field and dwelling conditions of their former inpatients. The result indicates the followings: 1) There is a strong correlation between the number of measures taken by each institution and dwelling conditions of their former inpatients, 2) Among others, both making a list of available rental housing and the sublease of existing private rental units are effective as measures, 3) The concerns with both housing needs of their inpatients and the role of the built environment tend to increase in proportion to the institution’s efforts to ensure their patients of an access to housing.
