Housing Unlimited

We encourage our tenants to succeed in their independence by providing concrete incentives such as rent credits for getting involved in the community. We also provide paid intern opportunities so that tenants can gain work experience.

Many of the people that we serve come to Housing Unlimited from homeless shelters, supervised residential programs, or the homes of their aging parents. With more than 350 people on our waiting list, Housing Unlimited must continue acquiring new homes to meet the needs of adults in mental health recovery who are seeking a permanent, affordable, and independent place to live. We can’t grow fast enough to meet the increasing needs of the community.

Housing Unlimited was conceived in the 1980s by members of the Alliance on Mental Illness of Montgomery County, MD (AMI), a 700-member non-profit counseling and advocacy group composed of family members of persons with psychiatric disabilities.

The AMI volunteer task force studied affordable housing options and developed interest in the benefits-economic and empowering-of separating housing from mental health services. The task force-an extraordinary group of volunteers (all with family members who were consumers) then incorporated Housing Unlimited in 1991. With a seed grant from AMI and donations from interested individuals, Housing Unlimited operations were launched in late 1994 with the purchase of Housing Unlimited’s first house.