Services Provided by a Homeless Intervention: Policy and Planning Implications

Abstract

With respect to policy development, intervention service use among the homeless & mentally ill are discussed in a survey of 163 participants in the Mental Health Linkage intervention in 2 US communities. The overall amount of service provided varied substantially. Despite a significant proportion of repeat service episodes, the majority of participants maintained contact with intervention services for less than 5 months, & it is argued that services must remain flexible in order to facilitate easy entrance & exit. The most common homeless project interventions concerned housing, case management, mental health interventions, & service entry; however, skill-building activities were underutilized. Contrary to expectations, individual client characteristics & demographic variables were not reliable predictors. The implications of these findings are briefly reviewed. 24 References. Adapted from the source document.