Supported housing and autism: what happens when vulnerability is obscured by intelligence

Intellectually able but socially naive — autistic adults without learning disabilities can often see their support needs overlooked as professionals struggle to recognise vulnerability obscured by their intelligence. Two mothers discuss the devastating experiences of their adult children due to a lack of proper supported housing.

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Recovery, decline, and hospitalisation, followed by recovery, decline, and hospitalisation. This is the destructive cycle that Parveen fears her adult autistic son is trapped in, as she battles the built-in flaws of a system leaving him marginalised, forgotten and alone.

Parveen, from Manchester, says a chronic shortage of suitable supported living accommodation for those with what used to be labelled Asperger syndrome has devastating consequences for their life chances.

Turn the clock back 18 years, and there was nothing in her now adult son’s development to hint at the seemingly insurmountable hurdles and challenges to come. He went to a grammar school aged 11 and passed his driving test on his first attempt six years later.

Parveen, who has asked that her son not be identified, said: “Over the last 13 years, other than short periods of non-sustainable recovery, his life has been on a downward trajectory, having suffered with suicidal ideation multiple times, low mood and depression and lost independent life skills, confidence and self-esteem.

“His aspirations and potential have been crushed. He is effectively confined to his bedroom 24 hours per day, existing with no quality of life and intense social isolation and loneliness.”

Difference between autism with and without a learning disability

Parveen insists her son is not alone and that his story is emblematic of what it means to be autistic without a learning disability — overlooked, neglected and discarded.

She says their needs are often conflated with those of people with autism and learning disabilities, who she maintains have profound but different and distinct challenges.

And it is this failure to see how vulnerability and social naivety can be obscured by intelligence that leaves them at risk.

Parveen’s friend Fiona Laskaris saw her autistic son Christopher, 24, ruthlessly exploited and murdered by drug dealer Philip Craig. The killer was cuckooing in Laskaris’ flat, in Leeds, before stabbing him to death in November 2016.

Craig got into Christopher’s flat after the police had damaged a door during a welfare check. Now, with the help of Laskaris, Parveen is campaigning for reforms to better protect others like their sons.

Campaign for better supported housing for autistic adults

In a petition, Parveen is calling on the government to fund supported living for autistic adults, including those without learning disabilities, who cannot maintain education, training or a job without specialist support.

She says some autistic adults without learning disabilities do not get housing support, which sees them deprived of the crucial help they need to live independently.

The petition reads, “This group can be highly vulnerable; their challenges are often hidden and poorly understood by professionals, with potentially devastating consequences.

“Delivering dedicated supported living could enable them to thrive, achieve independence, gain employment, reduce reliance on benefits and deliver economic and social benefits while promoting equality and inclusion.”

Shortfall of supported housing

The National Housing Federation, which represents the housing associations that provide supported living properties, says there is a “total shortfall of up to 325,000 homes, based on unmet needs”.

And last August, they warned that more than 50,000 homes in England for people with support needs — equivalent to one in ten — were at “imminent risk of closure, due to ongoing funding challenges”.

Laskaris is fighting to allow parents to ask for mental capacity assessments of vulnerable relatives. She has said she spent years fighting for help because her son struggled to live independently in the community.

The mother, from Surrey, says that though her son endured years of mental health crises and abuse in the community, he was never given a capacity assessment to determine the help he needed.

She maintains she was dismissed as an overprotective mother whenever raising concerns.

Laskaris has said people with autism can “lack insight into their own vulnerability“, so listening to family members is “essential“.

She has said her proposed amendment would “save lives” and “prevent the anguish and unimaginable distress of loving and caring relatives forced to stand by and witness their loved ones coming to harm”.

Laskaris believes those with autism who do not have a learning disability are not regarded as a priority by the authorities.

She said, “I just don’t think they are on the radar — the housing policy radar. I really just don’t. I think that they think because they can pass exams — academic exams — they don’t have a need, and they must prioritise people with learning disabilities.”

Laskaris said that had her son been found suitable, supported living accommodation, he would still be alive.

She explained, “He would still be alive today if there had been supported living accommodation, as he never would have been left without a functioning door.”

Parveen says her son’s health declined so much three years ago that she began to fear the worst. She added, “During that phase when he became very unwell and he just wasn’t getting the support he needed, I genuinely believed he was going to die.

“I had no doubt that if he was left like that, we would open his locked bedroom door one day and find that his heart had stopped.”

Autistic people and mental health problems

A 2022 review study led by Dr Niall Crowley found that autistic adults without a learning disability “are often particularly vulnerable to mental health problems” like anxiety, social phobia, depression and psychosis.

His study, published in the Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine, suggested that autistic adults are less likely to engage in treatment and have lower recovery chances.

Psychologist Crowley, of the Health Service Executive in Ireland, concluded that they are often “not best supported through adult mental health services and often require more tailored supports”.

Learning Disability Today approached the Department of Health and Social Care for a comment, but they have not yet responded.