FREE Access to Full Text: This article examines the recovery paradigm across several fields, and explores the need for recovery-oriented homeless services. It is featured in the “Future of Homeless Services” Special Issue, guest edited by the Homelessness Resource Center and published in the Open Health Services and Policy Journal. The authors, drawing from personal and indirect recovery perspectives, support current trends toward recovery-oriented care.
The recovery movement is reshaping approaches to treatment of mental illness, substance abuse, and traumatic stress disorders. Yet, recovery principles have not been well integrated into the homeless assistance network, despite high prevalence of mental illness, substance abuse, and trauma histories among people who are chronically homeless in the United States. We review approaches to recovery and recovery-oriented care and propose recommendations for adopting recovery oriented care within the homeless assistance network. (Authors)