Blueprint for Recovery: Comprehensive Services for Homeless Mentally Ill

About the Program

Category: Human Services (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

When building a healthy life, and having a home provides the stable foundation needed for developing relationships, finding and holding employment, and maintaining other healthy habits. Unfortunately, many seriously mentally ill people find themselves homeless and at ever-increasing risk. Not only do they face the challenges of their illness, but rather than empathy, they are often met with stigma and rejection by communities and property owners. However, with support, these individuals can begin their recovery. But it takes more than just affordable housing or more money spent on mental health services. To really make an impact on this population that most people would prefer to ignore requires a major paradigm shift. And that’s just what happened in San Diego County. The Blueprint for Recovery: Comprehensive Services for Homeless Mentally Ill is a multi-facetted approach to provide this vulnerable population with permanent housing, the necessary supportive services, and a stigma-busting campaign. It takes proven best practices to a new level of success by combining them, and also breaks new ground by reassigning funding for services to secure housing units, which are the cornerstone of success.