Autonomy and Human Rights Dilemmas in Supported Housing for People With Intellectual Disabilities

The right to individual autonomy, including the freedom to make one’s own choices, is a central tenet of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and is increasingly emphasized in policies promoting deinstitutionalization of social care services for people with intellectual disabilities. However, realizing this right in practice remains a complex challenge. Existing literature often frames social care workers (SCWs) as either hindering or enabling autonomy, but such binary perspectives obscure the everyday moral and institutional tensions that shape social care work. This article draws on ethnographic fieldwork from two supported housing facilities in Denmark to explore how SCWs experience and navigate these tensions. Using Mattingly’s concept of moral scenes, we show that the tensions involved in realizing autonomy sometimes arise from competing concerns and demands both within social care services and within the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities framework. We identify four interrelated dilemmas: the health, social inclusion, adequate standard of living, and resource dilemmas. Rather than viewing SCWs solely as facilitators or barriers to human rights realization, these dilemmas recognize SCWs’ role as situated frontline agents who navigate competing concerns within institutional constraints. Acknowledging and encouraging reflective, collective dialogue about these dilemmas may offer a critical pathway to support people with intellectual disabilities’ accessibility to human rights realization.