It is not unusual for television and movies to portray homeless people as mentally ill, fostering a stereotype that all homeless suffer from psychological illnesses.
\That is not the case,"" said Steven Schooler, executive director of Porchlight, a program in Madison helping homeless individuals, especially those with mental illnesses. ""There are a number of reasons someone is homeless.""
National estimates and data collected by Porchlight show approximately 40 percent of homeless men suffer from a mental illness, Schooler said.
Susan Kidd-Webster, who teaches a class on homelessness at UW-Madison, agreed while many homeless people have a mental illness, it is not a majority. There is, however, a problem of obtaining precise figures.
""One of the issues that's tough about homelessness is figuring out what is cause and what is effect,"" Kidd-Webster said. ""Because the experience of being homeless-especially for a long period of time-no doubt affects people's mental health.""
There are, however, people who suffer from severe and chronic mental illnesses before becoming homeless, according to Kidd-Webster.
Porchlight cares for people with the most common mental illnesses.
""The forms of mental illness that are most prevalent that we're generally talking about are schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major clinical depression,"" Schooler said.
Tammy Freeman, a crisis stabilization worker for the Crisis Unit of the Mental Health Center of Dane County, agreed some illnesses appear more often.
""Divided up there's probably a good portion of people needing more help with schizophrenia,"" she said.
More women suffer from depression related to trauma and abuse, Kidd-Webster said.
Although Porchlight sees more men than women overall, Schooler noted the same amounts of men and women suffer from mental illness.
""Interestingly enough, the percentages of homeless women with serious mental illness and men with serious mental illness are probably equivalent,"" he said. ""There are not as many individual women that are homeless as there are men.""
One reason for the notion that all homeless individuals are mentally ill comes from society's history of treating those with severe mental illnesses, said James Mandiberg, a UW-Madison professor of social work.
""As a country, for a 150-year period, we institutionalized people with severe mental illnesses in state hospitals,"" Mandiberg said. ""Starting in the late '50s through the mid-'70s, we shut down most of the institutions. It was public policy measure called de-institutionalization.""
Mandiberg said once these institutions closed, federal mandates required communities to provide comprehensive mental health services, but often funding for these centers was not provided. Kidd-Webster pointed to a difficulty these individuals may have in finding help.
""You have to have the receptivity to treatment or medication occurring at the same time where it's accessible to people and sometimes those two things don't happen at the same time,"" she said.
It may be difficult, but there are services and facilities to help mentally ill individuals. Porchlight provides five different shelter and social interaction programs in Madison.
""One of the things that people with mental illness suffer from, particularly once they move into their own housing, is a tremendous sense of isolation,"" Schooler said. ""[The volunteers] just do something with them once a week for a couple hours just as a means of keeping in contact.""
The Mental Health Center of Dane County provides services to homeless individuals with mental illnesses. The center's crisis unit provides temporary housing as well as housing with stabilization assistance.
Overall, Freeman said Madison provides good mental health services compared with other communities.
""When you get into other rural areas, even within Wisconsin, there's nothing that even comes close to the services that someone can get here in Madison,"" she said.
Editor's note: this is the third in a weeklong series on homelessness in Madison. Tomorrow's topic: the voice of the homeless.
