Can anyone provide information on group homes for adults? We’re thinking of doing this for my sister in law. Will this make her think we’ve betrayed her?
Group homes for what? Mental illness? Addiction? Developmental disabilities? Physical disability?
For mental illness
Have you talked to her about it? I wouldn’t force it on her or anything, but maybe explain why?
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I Am Not Personally in a Group Home.
But a Home Sharing Project Where I Am Introduced to Many Different People.
For Month’s it’s Been a Tough Road.
Now, Me, Personally, Strongly Believe in Peace. So I Do EVERYTHING Under My Power to Remain Calm.
Sending Someone Away For Whatever Reason Can Be a Very Bitter Pill to Swallow.
For Everyone.
Me Personally Lost Almost Everything I Ever Cared About.
My Family Sent Me Away Alright.
Left Me Alone in a House Without Electricity.
Gone!.
And My Therapist Saved My Life.
It Wasn’t Easy.
And No Matter What Potential I Reach.
It isn’t Enough.
Someone Always Wants More.
If I Can,
Why Do You Want to Send Someone Away?.
She keeps saying she doesn’t want to take care of herself and she’s not good with money and she’s not good with working. Basically she wants us to pick up the mess she’s gotten herself into. She’s homeless at this point. When I was in the hospital most of the patients family members had them put in a group home. That or be homeless. She has lost everything. No one else wants to help. She’s done this all her life. Everyone she ever came into contact with her, she has used, abused lied and took off. My husband and I put 2 and 2 together and she’s just trying to use us too.
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Yeah, I would talk to her.
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We will. I mean she’ll hate us for it. We’ve already helped her out a lot.
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Maybe tell her until she stays trying to help herself you’re done helping her. Give her this as an option.
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It Goes Way Beyond Family Gossip After She’s Washed Out of Your Hands.
It’s Her Future. Her Life.
And it Seems it’s All in Your Hand’s.
Not Many People Are Prepared For That Kind of Ugly Truth.
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I’ve been in a few. She may look at it is a betrayal but if she can’t take care of herself or is acting erratically you have to do what you think is best for her. If she doesn’t realize what’s best for her, that’s where she needs to be.
I was in one just two years ago and also from 1990-1995. They cook and clean for you. We just had to keep our own rooms neat and clean which wasn’t too difficult. I don’t know how serious you are about doing this for her but I’ll give a few tips on what to look for. First of all, obviously, you need to check out potential homes in person before moving her in. These things aren’t in order of importance but if the premises don’t have a washer and dryer onsite then it’s good to be in a group home near a laundromat. It’s just practical because laundry needs to be done at weekly or at the most every two weeks, there’s no getting around it. I once lived in a regular house where the closest laundromat was a 25 minute walk away. That was just such an inconvenience and aggravation to know I had to walk all that way carrying my laundry on the hottest days or on the coldest and rainiest days every week. So that’s one consideration.
A group home close to bus lines is always good too. Because she’s going to need to go places like the doctor or buy toiletries or other stuff and having a store nearby or on a bus line can save a lot of time and effort.
Yeah, if you go shopping around for a group home (because some are better than others) you want to scope out the area and see what’s nearby in the way of mental health and physical clinics, barber shops, clothes stores, restaurants, drug stores and pharmacy’s, libraries etc, it’s good to have a 7-11 close by to get a coke or snack occasionally if she wants.
I’m just racking my brains trying to remember stuff from when I lived there but I remember the one group home I was in had planned activities but the group homes can still get pretty boring so it’s nice to have a park nearby or to find a home where it’s safe for a person to walk alone in your own neighborhood. So a library is a good thing to be near, it’s quiet and relaxing and people leave you alone.
Group homes feed you of course so she wouldn’t have to worry about shopping and cooking. I should have said this right off the bat but unfortunately she might have to share a room with another female. That can be both a good thing and a bad thing. It would be bad because she wouldn’t have full privacy but it’s good because she would have someone to talk to and relate too and it will help her not to get lonely.
Sad to stay, it’s not uncommon for people to steal in those places but hopefully the place you decide upon will have locks on the door of her room. The ones I spent two years in I felt fairly safe but to be honest there were incidents that got pretty scary and made me nervous; in fact I pissed a couple people off and they got crazy and wanted to harm me. It all blew over after a week or two and they left me alone. But that stuff happens.
The people can get vaguely dangerous and threatening but I still could walk alone at in the courtyard at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning alone because I couldn’t sleep and I really didn’t feel like anyone was going to attack me. Yeah, I don’t want to make these sound like they’re dangerous, for the most part you get to know the people and most of them mean you no harm.
If your sister-in-law gets put on meds the staff might take charge and keep them and dole them out. In my last place I was in charge of my own and I’m a grown adult but I felt a little pride that I could take care of my own medication.
I was actually in a couple of other different group homes but one was just for a couple of weeks and the other was in the early eighties and the one in the eighties was not typical for a group home because it was highly structured and everybody had to be high functioning and the agency and counselors who ran it were very pro-active in helping the clients where today, most of your average or run-of-the-mill group homes are just going to feed and board you but not give you any therapy.
But the owners or people who run these homes will try to help you a little out of the kindness of their heart and you meet counselors or staff who like you and you like them and they might give you attention and advice and guidance. It’s not uncommon.
Day to day life, you mostly have to amuse yourself but making friends to talk to and hang out with happens, in fact it happens a lot. People tend to get in cliques which personally, I never belonged to but I was still friendly with people. I never had enemies though some people didn’t like me. But the atmosphere at group homes can be OK, people like to just sit and talk and smoke and drink soda.
Unfortunately a pitfall at these places is that drug use and drinking take place. Not at all of them but some of them.It’s hard for the staff to stop the clients from drinking or doing drugs if the clients really want to. It can be a problem but hopefully your sister-in-law can avoid that pitfall.
The thing is that a lot of people at group homes don’t want to be there so while it can be a relaxing, uneventful atmosphere there might be some dissatisfied people there. But people are people and sometimes the places are happy and social with everybody just living their life and doing the best they can until they’re back on their feet. My sister pointed out when I talk about the two years in the group home that I complained a lot about it but I met some really cool people and had some really, good, experiences there and made some really good, honest human connections.
This is what I remember, I could write a lot more but this is a few of the basics.
Overall, they can be good places to live.
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Dude.
Summarize.
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Thank you so much. I will show this to my husband. He’s the one that’s going to talk to her about it. Hope she agrees to it.
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A lot of people at the psych hospital I did my clinical at had been at group homes before. Some of them had really positive experiences and liked them, some had traumatic or terrible experiences. It really just depends on the home. Do careful research.
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Thanks. I’ve already found a few close by.
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