Am J Psychiatry 1990; 147:1557-1561
Copyright © 1990 by American Psychiatric Association
Psychiatry takes to the streets: the New York City initiative for the homeless mentally ill
LR Marcos, NL Cohen, D Nardacci and J Brittain
New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, New York University School of Medicine, NY 10013.
The authors describe New York City's program to remove seriously mentally
ill homeless people from the streets to a public hospital. They report on
the 298 patients hospitalized during the first year of this program. Most
of the patients were male (66%), single (77%), and from outside of New York
City (79%) and claimed a history of previous psychiatric hospitalization
(92%) and that they had been homeless for more than 1 year (66%). Most of
the patients suffered from schizophrenia (80%) and had additional medical
diagnoses (73%). Follow- up contact with the patients 2 years after
initiation of the program revealed that 55% of the patients either were
living in a community setting or were under institutional care.
