Mental health and housing: A crisis on the streets?

Abstract

The early enthusiasm for community care has waned in recent years with a succession of incidents in which former psychiatric patients have committed serious harm to themselves and others within a comparatively short period of their release. Such incidents have sparked a series of inquiries into the individual events. The central objective of this article is to analyse whether the failures in community care can be derived from failures in the provision of housing owing to the underestimation of its role in the community care process. Has community care overlooked the basic housing needs of discharged patients rendering impossible any effective benefits which could have been achieved from the community care policy? Has the law relating to housing rights failed to ensure an adequate framework for care in the community, thereby exacerbating the problems faced by released psychiatric patients?

Key Words:

• community care
• homelessness
• housing legislation
• mental health