Looking toward Chestnut Street, not in this near dusk light a few days shy of the vernal equinox but at noon in summer’s full tide, I see him coming this way, backpack slung over his right shoulder and an enormous Bugs Bunny T-shirt hanging loose over his hips to disguise the outline of his ostomy bag. He has walked almost a mile, even with the short cut behind school up three flights of steps dug into the hillside.

The relationship between people who are homeless and providers of social services occurs at a border where the disenfranchised and the representatives of mainstream society encounter each other.

Starting in the 1990s with Jim, a person who was homeless and initially refused help from outreach workers, Citizenship and Mental Health tells a 20-year story of practice, theory, and research to support the full participation of people with mental illnesses.

The relationship between people who are homeless and providers of social services occurs at a border where the disenfranchised and the representatives of mainstream society encounter each other.