Congregate living for the mentally ill: patients as tenants

The authors describe an apartment-living project for chronic mental patients released from the Hillside Division of the Long Island Jewish-Hillside Medical Center. The apartments, which are rented by the hospital and sublet to the patients, are located in modern, well-maintained high-rise buildings within commuting distance from the hospital. To avoid creating a psychiatric ghetto, the project rents no more than two apartments in buildings of a hundred or more units. The hospital was able to rent the apartments by assuring the landlords that the hospital would be a financially responsible tenant and that staff would be in continuing contact with the patients, would be available to the landlords if problems arose, and would remove troublesome tenants. Some of the problems encountered by the patients in the program are described, as are guidelines for selecting those who have a reasonable chance of benefiting from such a program.