(July 25, 2014) “Anyone walking the streets is familiar with the problem of lost souls too disoriented to take care of themselves,” the Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote in an appeal for Laura’s Law. “Though many mental patients seek treatment, others refuse and wind up drifting on the streets, a risk to themselves and others (“Laura’s Law at last for SF,” June 24).”

Approximately one-third of the total homeless population includes individuals with serious, untreated mental illnesses according to a research summary compiled by the Treatment Advocacy Center.

The Treatment Advocacy Center’s newly updated backgrounder, “How many individuals with a serious mental illness are homeless” examines the percentage of homeless individuals with serious mental illness and their abysmal quality of life.

Approximately 33 percent of the homeless are individuals with serious mental illnesses that are untreated;

Many of these people suffer from schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder or major depression;

The homeless population has increased steadily in cities and small towns since the 1970s;

In Massachusetts and Ohio, 27 and 36 percent of people released from mental institutions became homeless within 6 months;

Previously hospitalized people were three times more likely to obtain food from the garbage;

Studies show that psychotic individuals are much more likely to get assaulted or threatened while homeless;

Though officials believe that they are saving money by releasing patients from mental hospitals, there is a significant cost to the patient and to society at large. “In 2001, a University of Pennsylvania study that examined 5,000 homeless people with mental illnesses in New York City found that they cost taxpayers an average of $40,500 a year for their use of emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals, shelters and prisons.”

Though homelessness is an accepted part of the urban landscape for city dwellers in public spaces, there are many individuals who suffer and go unnoticed. A substantial number of the psychiatrically ill live in the outskirts of cities, under bridges and even tunnels that carry subway trains beneath cities.

As states continue to close down psychiatric facilities, there will be an increasing number of individuals with serious mental illness who are homeless. In Seattle in 2013, the mayor called the number of untreated mentally ill people on the street “an emergency.” Unless local and national measures are taken to protect and treat the mentally ill, this trend will likely continue well into the future.

For access to more of our backgrounders, which summarize information about severe mental illness, policies and programs related to its treatment, and the consequences of lack of treatment, visit the “Backgrounders” page on our website.

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