Some 7,000 of them live on their own, or with family or friends, but get support from state programs. Clubhouses like Center Club near North Station offer meals and job training, a place to spend the day and a way to help in the kitchen or on the computer. There are crisis-response units at places like Cambridge Hospital that bring help directly to people's homes. That does not mean there are no gaps remaining in the safety net. The most visible are on the streets, where statewide there are an estimated 2,000 homeless people with severe and persistent mental illness.
Prisons are another place the mentally ill turn up in disproportionate numbers.
The Department of Mental Health compiles its own lists of those it wants to help, but can't right now. Some on the residential waiting list are homeless. But Hall was ready to leave nine months ago, and there are no openings for her at either a group home or a government-subsidized apartment.