Disability and living

Switzerland ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2014, which requires people with disabilities to be provided with the opportunity to participate equally in all areas of life. Independent living is a key priority. The independent living requirements can be met in both private and institutional housing – e.g., communal residential accommodation without 24-hour supervision.

In Switzerland, the cantons are required to provide institutional housing for people with disabilities. Three different models of cantonal funding exist: Flat-rate institutional funding, beneficiary-led institutional funding based on occupancy levels and payments made directly to beneficiaries whereby people with disabilities can freely select services for themselves.

The change of system to making payments to beneficiaries instead of institutions is challenging. Advice/advisory services play a key role, as they support people with disabilities in gaining access to needs-based services and dealing with them.

Procedure

The review of housing for people with disabilities carried out by the Federal Social Insurance Office (FSIO) shows how the amount of accommodation available changed between 2011 and 2017 as well as highlighting regional differences.

As part of the study entitled ‘Financial flows and financing models in the area of housing for people with disabilities’, case studies were carried out in the cantons of Basel-Stadt, St. Gallen and Valais. It compared the extent to which the three difference financing models support the goal of independence.

In a study produced for the canton of Zurich, advisory requirement targets were determined based on interviews with experts and self-advocates as well as online surveys completed by advisory services. This enables people with disabilities to make independent choices on support services.

Review of housing

The share of private housing was highest in French-speaking Switzerland in 2017 at 5.21 per 1000 inhabitants but fell in German-speaking Switzerland, dropping to 3.41 in Eastern Switzerland. Conversely, the share of institutional housing was much lower in French-speaking Switzerland at 3.20 than in the German-speaking part of the country.

Within the institutional housing segment, the share of settings with a higher degree of independence is highest in Central Switzerland (58%) but much lower in French-speaking Switzerland (33%). If the shares of the various types of independent housing are combined, the differences are less stark. This means 68% to 79% of people with disabilities live in a setting with a high degree of independence depending on the region. The difference between the regions does not lie in the amount of independent housing available but instead in how it is organised.

Funding and independence

A comparison of the cantons indicates that the funding model where payments are made directly to beneficiaries seems to promote private living most effectively and to best meet the needs of people with disabilities. The higher cost share contributed by the canton of Basel-Stadt indicates that in comparative terms more services are used in private housing – which is funded by the beneficiary-based model. This type of housing gives service recipients’ greater freedom of choice. The higher proportion of people with disabilities living in private accommodation can be interpreted as the result of greater independence in the canton of Basel-Stadt.

Criteria for advisory services

Various conflicting priorities and goals must be addressed in the transition to the target advisory services model. These challenges can be overcome by developing advisory services based on the following criteria:

• Types of advice: To enable the provision of extensive advice on issues related to day-to-day living, the advisory service must provide social or psychosocial advice.
• Range of advice: The advisory service must provide a sufficiently broad range of advice to cover issues related to day-to-day living as specialist advisory services in this field are very rare in Switzerland.
• Easily accessible: Advice must be available from any location, as an outreach service, free-of-charge and without registration to ensure access to needs-based services.
• Peer advice: This solution ideally complements professional advice as people with disabilities feel as though their concerns are better addressed and peer advisers possess specific skill sets.
• Independence: Organisations providing advisory services must avoid conflicts of interest with their own housing services.
• Qualifications and quality assurance: Advisory staff holding tertiary level qualifications is a key quality criterion to which people with disabilities nevertheless only attach importance to a limited extent. An alternative criterion to continual staff training and development is quality assurance based on peer consulting.