The mentally ill homeless: isolation and adaptation.

Project HELP was established in New York City in 1982 as a mobile outreach unit providing crisis medical and psychiatric services to impaired homeless persons. The authors describe the demographic characteristics of the population served, the disposition of patients accepting treatment or shelter services, and the adaptation of the homeless to weather extremes. They discuss the difficulties in providing services to a population whose members are distrustful of authority and are unwilling to provide information about themselves. They conclude that the more disaffiliated members of the homeless population, such as those served by Project HELP, need even more extensive services than the homeless who use some kind of existing sheltered care, and they suggest various kinds of services to meet their needs.