For cen-turies society handled the problem of mental illness by creating institutions located far from the mainstream of life. The public tended to view the disability as permanent with little or no hope of recovery. During the last two decades dramatic strides have been made in the alleviation of the problems of the mentally ill, and the advent of the psychotropic medications have brought the emergence of new possibilities of recovery or im-provement to thousands afflicted with varying degrees of emotional disturbance. As a result, thousands of persons have been discharged from mental health facilities and live in the community.
Communities find themselves facing a new set of circumstances which require a new set of responses.
Unfortunately, communities were not prepared ade-quately for the return of the hospitalized population. As a result, vast numbers of people in communities deal with the presence of discharged persons in their neighborhoods with reactions characterized by fear and re-jection. There is a need for massive re-education of the community as well as for more adequate programming to meet the needs of the deinstitutionalized. In keeping with its prophetic mission the Church and its agencies identifies itself with the poor and rejected persons in society. In our present society the discharged population often fits into the category of poor and rejected.