Involuntary Hospitalization and Coercive Treatment of People With Mental Illness Experiencing Homelessness—Going Backward With Foreseeable Harms

Mental health and homeless service systems in the US and Canada have long grappled with the enduring ill effects of deinstitutionalization on homelessness among people with serious mental illness. Shortages in affordable and permanent supportive housing continue to undermine a foundational component of mental health recovery: stable housing. As a result, homelessness and serious mental illness have become an intractable wicked problem. In the absence of substantial government investments and intergovernmental and cross-sectoral collaboration, well-meaning but regressive policies that lead people with mental illness experiencing homelessness to be moved “out of sight, out of mind” have become more overt.