42

The results presented here are based on the At-Home project (like Housing First ) that took place in five Canadian cities. The author was co-principal investigator in Montreal and responsible for the analysis of narrative interviews involving a sample of the 469 participants (at the beginning of the project, at 18 months and at 48 months, one year after the end of the project itself). The analysis brings out the impact of participation in the experimental groups from the point of view of members of those groups as compared with control groups. What emerges, among other things, is the importance of the relational dimension of well-being—the feeling of “existing” in the eyes of others—just as much as the improvement in material conditions of life. This positive experience is above all characteristic in adult men who do not have high mental health needs. As far as women are concerned—one-third of the participants—participation in experimental groups was far from being so conclusive, with several finding themselves in the same situation of vulnerability to violence and abuse from men that they have known their entire lives.