Housing Policy for People with Intellectual Disability What is the Problem?

This paper examines how housing policy defines the housing problem for people with intellectual disability in Australia, Ireland, and Norway. Despite commitments to independent living and inclusion, many people experience limited choice, insecure housing, or segregation. Using Critical Disability Theory and Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ approach, we analysed policy and legal documents, government reports, and research literature across the three countries. Policy commonly frames the problem as inadequate supply, service coordination, or access pathways. These representations obscure how mainstream housing systems, market pressures, ableism, and institutional practices exclude people with intellectual disability and normalise lower-standard or segregated housing. We argue that housing should be treated as a mainstream issue of rights, equality, and housing justice. Reform requires accountability across housing and support systems, resources, stronger safeguards against segregation, and involvement of people with intellectual disability in policy design, implementation, and review.