New group home for psychiatric patients tried in Rotterdam

Rotterdam is to set up a new type of supervised accommodation for homeless people with serious psychiatric problems and addiction issues.

Forty people will be brought together under one roof in Poortugaal, a village near Rotterdam that is also home to a forensic psychiatric clinic, in a supervised environment where they can receive more structured support.

The residents will be allowed to stay in the facility for up to eight years, receiving long-term and structured support that is often lacking in temporary accommodation.

Around 1,500 people in the Netherlands are classed as posing a high risk to public safety. They often have learning difficulties, suffer from psychiatric illness and struggle with addiction, which can lead to aggressive, disruptive or deranged behaviour in public.

Many of the patients have spent their lives alternating between living on the streets and being incarcerated in clinics or prisons, posing a danger to themselves and others.

Pillar to post

“They get passed from pillar to post when what they really need is intensive support for several years,” Laura van Goor, of Artes, the organisation running the facility, told Nieuwsuur. “But we don’t have that right now in the Netherlands.”

Psychiatric clinics are intended for short stays of around three months, but patients often end up staying longer to prevent them ending up back on the streets.

But the treatment is short-term and keeping patients in care for longer adds to waiting lists.

Van Goor said the patients would have more freedom to move around on the campus than in smaller-scale facilities, while also benefiting from a more structured regime. They will not be allowed out unsupervised.

Drink and drugs will be formally banned, unlike in temporary housing where usage is usually tolerated. “But it’s not a case of ‘if you use, you’re out,’ Van Good said. “That’s not possible: 95% of them have drug problems.”