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The Berlin Runaway House
Contact Information:
Iris Hoelling
Weglaufhaus
Postfach 28 04 27
Berlin, Germany
Telephone: + 49-30-406-32-146
Fax: + 49-30-406-321-47
The Berlin Runaway House is a modern consumer-run initiative whose philosophical roots trace back to a program originating in the Netherlands prior to the era of deinstitutionalization. In this time period, the Dutch developed the so-called “runaway house” in order to offer alternative living environments to psychiatric patients. These runaway houses, now obsolete in Holland, served a necessary function at a time when hospital conditions were substandard and patients had no mainstream living alternatives in the community.
Like other social programs in the Netherlands, the runaway house program was liberal. That is, patients who were involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals, and who managed to escape and find their way to one of many runaway houses scattered throughout the country, were permitted to stay. Moreover, they were permitted to stay without fear of being apprehended and sent back to the hospital; it was illegal for hospital management or the police to dispatch someone to retrieve a patient. The rationale supporting this concept was basic, but revolutionary: If a hospitalized patient was so dissatisfied that she decided to run away from the hospital, it was obvious that she did not like living in the hospital and should have the opportunity to live elsewhere.
Like the Dutch runaway houses, the Berlin Runaway House was born out of a need to provide alternative living environments for consumers. But while the Dutch runaway houses were governmentally operated, the Berlin Runaway House is a consumer run initiative. And while in the Netherlands the program was accepted, in Berlin the community has not been supportive of such an alternative housing option. In 1990, a Berlin businessman whose son had committed suicide while confined to a substandard psychiatric hospital purchased a large home in the center of an upscale residential Berlin neighborhood and donated the home to the Association for the Protection Against Psychiatric Violence. He requested that this organization utilize the house to develop an alternative living environment for consumers. Immediately, resistance blossomed in the community. Social agencies were not capable of assimilating the program into their rigid bureaucratic regulations; mental health professionals publicly minimized the home’s role and potential; and, because the home was located in a residential neighborhood, the neighbors sued to prevent its opening. But despite all of this opposition, the Berlin Runaway House opened on January 1, 1996, and has been operating successfully ever since.
Today, the majority of the runaway house’s residents have long histories of psychiatric treatment, have been institutionalized multiple times, have been forcibly treated and over-medicated, and have been labeled with numerous diagnoses. Consequently, they are relieved to know that such treatment will not occur at the runaway house. The house accommodates 13 residents who live in a consumer-managed environment without the implications of psychiatric diagnoses and without the influence of psychiatric drugs. At the runaway house, residents may talk openly about their frustrations and disappointments without consequently submitting to traditional psychiatric services. Residents are supported around the clock by hardworking employees who guide - but do not mandate - the residents’ management of everyday life and who also provide guidance in the general operations and upkeep of the house. Berlin Runaway House residents are never clinically “treated,” but are unconditionally supported in their pursuit of independence.
If for any reason a Berlin Runaway House resident becomes anxious or upset, his peers will help to make him comfortable again. This continuous interaction is labor intensive but valuable in maintaining trusting relationships among the residents. In some conventional psychiatric settings, professionals use medication to suppress the patients’ anxieties or their challenging behavior. But at the Berlin Runaway House, personal interaction and unconditional support is the cornerstone of the program. |
