Abstract
Hospital and Community Psychiatry February 1992 Vol. 43 No.2 171 live forpersons released from jail may put formerly incarcerated persons at increased risk of homelessness. Caution should be exercised in generalizing these results to all jailed persons with mental illness because the data pertained to those who entered and left the system within a six-month period. Furthermore, homelessness data were limited to self-reports. However, it is evident from these data that persons who were most at risk of homelessness in a jailed mentally ill population were those with the most severe psychiatnc disabilities. Analyses were also limited by exclusion ofother important factors that contribute to homelessness, such as socioeconomic status, availability ofsocial supports, and use of mental health services before arrest. Given the disabilities ofthese persons, the possibility that the most difficult psychiatric patients are left to the criminal justice and homeless service systems must be addressed. The mental health system needs to provide assertive outreach-oriented services ifit is to reach these patients. Assertive case management for homeless mentally ill persons has shown some promise (9). We are currently assessing, by randomized clinical trial, a team approach to intensive case management using aggressive outreach and in vivo skill training with a forensic homeless psychiatric population.
Published Version
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