Innovative Outreach Services for the Homeless Mentally Ill

Abstract

An elderly man, with numerous visible ulcerations, clad in layers of tattered clothing and living in a cardboard box on a hot air vent, gesticulates wildly and mutters incoherently. A young man, whose complexion is barely discernible beneath layers of grime, paws frantically through a garbage container and picks out scraps of food. A frail, elderly woman, dressed in several layers of plastic garbage bags over layers of heavy clothing, stands on 4 'her corner fanning herself in 90e heat and talking loudly about the numerous 4 'plots against her. A young, disheveled, barely clad black man, curled in a fetal position on a park bench, remains mute and communicates with a private system of bizarre hand signals.