National Housing Strategy for People with a Disability 2011 - 2016

agencies and publicly funded voluntary bodies away from managing institutionaliseddependency to ensuring mainstream assessment of individual housing needs, findingperson-centred community based housing solutions, and providing appropriate tenancy,health and social care supports to people with disabilities, from within the resourcescurrently available across the sector.The strategy commits to completion of the housing elements underpinning the long standingmental health policy ‘A Vision for Change’, in relation to the transition from institutionalsettings to independent living in community based settings, for people with mental healthdisabilities who have low and medium support needs.The strategy was also informed by the deliberations and recommendations of the WorkingGroup on Congregated Settings, established by the HSE in 2008 and which reported thissummer, and will complement the work currently being undertaken by the Department ofHealth and the HSE on the Value for Money and Policy Review of Disability Services which isexpected to be completed by the end of the year.This strategy forms an integral part of the recent Housing Policy Statement, which placedgreater emphasis on choice, equity across housing tenures and delivering quality outcomesfor the resources invested in mainstream housing solutions. The statement also set out theGovernment’s approach to regulation of the wider housing market, including the voluntaryand cooperative housing associations, maximising the delivery of social housing supportswithin the resources available, reform of the private rented sector and the delivery ofhousing supports for households with special needs.Appropriate and secure housing has been recognised as a key factor in assisting people,including those with disabilities, to manage and/or recover from a mental health disability.The proposals contained in the strategy will have a positive impact in supporting people withmental health disabilities to engage with employment opportunities. Similarly, theseproposals will also assist people with intellectual and or physical disabilities to avail ofemployment opportunities and integrate more fully into their communities, in line with theprinciples of mainstreaming and social inclusion under the National Disability Strategy.It is heartening to see the amount of cross-Departmental and inter-agency work – a wholeof-governmentapproach – which has resulted in this publication and which will be continuedthrough the work of the high level Implementation Planning Group. As part of the process,this Group will be responsible for identifying sustainable funding mechanisms to resource theimplementation of the strategy. Progress in the years ahead will be driven by the work of anImplementation Monitoring Committee which will be tasked with producing annual5