Living in a Group Home Pt. 1/2: General Situation
(I’m going to do a Part 2 later, on actually working with the staff on recovery goals, but right now I have to do my chore (see below))
Let me start by saying a little about myself, for perspective: I’m 28, cis female, asexual and aromantic. I was diagnosed with depression at a young enough age that I can’t actually remember if if was before or after starting elementary school, and with ADHD a few years later, and I’ve been on meds for them (immensely helpful) ever since. I was diagnosed with Aspergers in high school. For almost three years, I’ve lived in a group home run by a local non-profit. I haven’t lived in a facility of this sort run by anyone else, so I can’t tell you anything about the spectrum of experiences different facilities afford.
The organization that runs my group home has three levels of care:
- staff onsite 24/7
- staff onsite most of the day (7am-10pm weekdays, 9am-7pm weekends)
- staff come by in the morning and evening to give out meds and check in
(I started in level three but moved to level two because I couldn’t handle keeping things clean by myself, to a degree that it could have caused trouble for the organization if there had been an inspection.)
I know a lot of people don’t like labels like ‘high functioning,’ but these levels of care do roughly correspond to those kind of descriptions. The people in the 24-hour house are often those most clearly unable to take care of themselves.
To be in the program I’m in, you have to be on disability, and like most of the others, the organization is my Representative Payee, meaning they receive my checks and give me an allowance. I usually have about $150 to work with a month, plus a little over $100 in food stamps. This has to cover food and other expenses like most toiletries. I have yet to figure out how the people who smoke (not allowed in the house, but so common on the side porch that the neighbors once complained) afford it.
Everyone pays for their own lunch and dinner, but most people participate in the group meal for dinner, paying for food for everyone one night a week. I don’t, because I’m a vegetarian and they always have some sort of meat. I think the requirements are that there be a protein, a vegetable, and a starch. People tend to make the same few low-effort things over and over, like chicken nuggets or spaghetti with meat sauce. Vegetables are usually boiled. Staff may help people cook depending on their ability to handle it on their own.
There are three staff members, though on most days only one or two are there at a time. They’re usually quite young, with bachelor’s degrees only. I don’t know how much they make, but from discussions with my therapist (employed by the same non-profit) I know it’s basically peanuts. House staff don’t often stick around for more than a year in my experience. Of the three who worked here when I arrived, one left to take a supervisory position with another organization, one went back to school, and one finished additional schooling and switched to working for tech support, which apparently pays better. There’s also a supervisor, who is in charge of several different houses and comes by at least once a week to coordinate things with the house staff and check in with residents. One of the house staff is kind of in charge of the others, but not by much. This person also takes care of logistical stuff like office and cleaning supplies and doesn’t work weekends.
As part of the program, everyone is required to get out of the house and do a “meaningful activity” on at least three days every week. What that means may vary according to the person. For example, spending time at the library would count for most of my housemates, but not for me, since I’d be doing the exact same thing I would at home (reading, browsing and writing), only without the occasional video games. Most people make use of the classes and activities offered by the non-profit at the same building where the therapist’s and psychiatrist’s offices are.
Activities include cooking class (more focused on producing “dollar lunch” for people who are around that day than actual teaching), gardening in the greenhouse (plants are sometimes sold at the annual craft fair to raise money for the organization), yoga and a group that goes to various events and locations of interest in the community. We have several good museums nearby that they visit sometimes. Counselors in the “life skills” area that runs most of these classes have a lot of turnover too, though not as much as group home counselors, and the available classes sometimes change depending on the skills of the current batch. I’m very lucky that we have a guy with a creative writing background who runs a writing group. It’s just a prompt and then sharing and commenting at the end, but he gives good feedback. I just worry that he’s being gentle with me the way I know he does with other clients (not untruthful, mind you, just careful).
Of special note is the art program. This isn’t art therapy, as the woman who runs it makes very clear. It’s actual art classes. The teacher has a degree in (I think) fine arts. There’s a more basic class, where there are specific projects assigned, and a more self-directed studio class you have to be invited to. Even in the more basic one, you can pursue your own interests if the project isn’t doing it for you. Until recently, a small local gallery donated wall space for us to display and sell our art, but now that the owner is retiring the teacher is looking for someplace new. And people do sell art, and for amounts of money that really make a difference when you’re on disability. One of my pieces sold for $120, which was a very nice cushion for the grocery bill. I kept only about two thirds of that, because I used the studio’s materials. It would have been 85% if had used only my own materials.
Socially, the house is pretty dead. There’s no conversation over dinner, though there sometimes is in front of the TV.
Entertainment-wise, it’s pretty much just that TV. It has a very basic cable package, and is on nearly constantly. There are some books around, but I’ve never seen anyone else reading. I think the books may have been left behind by people who moved out. We still have VHS that no one has gotten rid of, too. There’s also a Wii, but I’ve never seen that used either. One other person says he has a laptop, but I’ve never actually seen it. An older woman has an iPad, which she likes to watch videos on. We have one person whose English is quite poor, so her main entertainment is music from her home region. The staff and both used to play youtube videos for her, but now she has an iPod. I gather that she had a lot of money left over after a year or so of not doing anything with it but buying groceries.
The house itself is pretty big, and I gather that it’s one of the newer ones the organization owns. It’s a coed arrangement, with the guys having three rooms upstairs and two of them having to share, while the women on the main floor and the basement all have their own rooms. I’ve got the basement room at the moment, having switched with someone who was having more difficulty that usual and who the staff wanted closer to them. Bathrooms are shared except for the basement one, which I have to myself. There are two other bathrooms on the main floor, one for two clients and one for the remaining female client and the staff. There’s also one upstairs for the guys. The guys aren’t supposed to use any of the women’s bathrooms on pain of cleaning the whole thing, but it happens anyway because it’s more convenient to the living room.
There’s free internet but it’s not exactly great. The bandwidth on the guest network that clients have access to is terrible (250kps downloads per device, throttled) and about a year ago they started turning it off from 10pm to 6am. This is the same at every house, apparently, and apparently done because people somewhere were staying up all night online.
- They regulate the temperature in the showers so people can’t burn themselves, which means you can’t really get a good, hot shower, just a warm one.
- I don’t think this is normal, but meds are dispensed from a machine in your room, though only staff have access to them and they have to be taken in the office.
- The fire alarm, which is hella loud, automatically contacts the local fire department. Everyone has to leave the house when it goes off and can’t go back in until the fire department clears things – regardless of weather or state of shoelessness.
- Everyone has an evening chore, like cleaning the dining or living room or the hallways, and chores change every month.
- The furniture is serviceable and boring, and there’s no decoration other than the Game of Thrones poster I put up and reminders like “please do not put feet on or lay on furniture.”
- They take the pillows off the furniture and lock them in the office at night too keep people from sleeping in the living room.
[Thank you for sharing your personal experiences! -Shrink]
