Nowhere to Go: The Tragic Odyssey of the Homeless Mentally Ill is now available with an updated prologue and epilogue via open access. Thus, it is freely available to read and/or download. [link removed]
When it was originally published in 1988 it was said to be the definitive account of why deinstitutionalization failed, why the community mental health center movement failed, and why there are so many severely mentally ill individuals among the homeless and incarcerated. The Wall Street Journal called it “a remarkable book”. The San Francisco Examiner said it was “a historical hit piece on the horrors of deinstitutionalization.” Newsweek called it “one of the most scathing indictments yet of the deinstitutionalization effort.” And, according to the Washington Post, “Nowhere is a portrait of the battered mental patient more vividly drawn then in Nowhere to Go”.
Today, 70 years after we started emptying the state mental hospitals, there are approximately 218,000 severely mentally ill individuals who are homeless, 108,000 in our local jails, and 156,000 in our state and federal prisons. Deinstitutionalization has been politically an equal opportunity disaster. The emptying of the hospitals took place over 35 years under 4 Republican and 3 Democratic administrations. Since then, 3 more Republican and 3 more Democratic administrations have failed to correct the mistakes. The last two chapters of the book tells them how to do so.​​​​​​
If you would like to support TAC programs and publications, please consider making a donation today.
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
Our mailing address is:
200 Daingerfield Rd, Suite 202, Alexandria, VA 22314
Phone: (703) 294-6001
Fax: (703) 294-6010
tac.org
[link removed]
unsubscribe from all emails
[link removed]
| update subscription preferences
[link removed]