Mental health and homelessness
There are about 3,400 people sleeping rough in London every year, each with their own individual story and mental health history. When asked, over 80% of our clients said they had experienced mental health problems.
Around 35% of rough sleepers have a diagnosed mental health problem - a percentage that hasn't changed in fifteen years. A figure that is over twice as high than in the general population, and up to 15 times as high when it comes to psychosis.
Research conducted by a trained psychologist of our residents, found that up to 85% of residents met the criteria for personality disorders, 40% for anxiety disorders and 25% for depressive and/or post-traumatic stress disorders. None of these clients had been formally diagnosed - for these are people who often shy away from the services and advice that could help them, whilst the services shun them too.
Tackling mental illness has long been a priority for St Mungo's since our inception in 1969. A number of our current projects have their roots in the Homeless Mentally Ill initiatives of the 1990s. We pioneered the Recovery Approach with homeless people and we are the first homeless charity to enable comprehensive access to psychological therapies for our clients through our LifeWorks Pyschotherapy Service.
We now have a dedicated mental health team working across our hostels. We have 39 complex needs projects offering 443 bedspaces. They include two successful dual diagnosis (mental health and drug dependency) projects. But we have to do so much more.
The causes of mental health problems are all too familiar. Our research actually shows that approximately 45% of St Mungo's clients were abused as children, and over 50% lost a parent or primary caregiver suddenly, nearly half of them in an especially traumatic way such as by suicide. Support problems were exacerbated by the closure of large psychiatric hospitals and the ongoing reduction of in-patient beds.
Sadly, self-harm, suicide attempts, overdoses, self-neglect, and challenging behaviour of all kinds are issues we train our staff in to support and cope with.
Earlier this year, we launched a Call For Evidence on the issues involved and commissioned new research, to learn more about those issues. Our evidence will be used to persuade the Government to fund necessary improvements to services, and seek new solutions. We are calling on the Government to act now, and accept a target within three years of reducing, to zero, the number of people sleeping on the streets who have a mental illness.
visit our other Action Week '09 pages:
About mental health & homelessness
Happiness Matters to our clients
40 years - Memories of St Mungo's
Other reading:
- Happiness Matters to our clients: research project
- Mental health: your questions answered
Related content
- Happiness matters - Internal page
- Mental health: your questions answered - Internal page
- £1million Mental Health Appeal - Internal page
- Tell us about a rough sleeper
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