Mental Health Services for the Poor

Experts are convinced that mental illness is vastly more prevalent than the statistics reveal, and that perhaps one person in ten in the United States suffers from some form of mental illness.2 Probably no more than ten to twenty per cent of those needing treatment receive it.3 The ones not getting it are primarily the poor-because they cannot afford it and because they are skeptical and even hostile toward psychiatry and social agencies generally. One alarming circumstance is the extent of such illness and related handicaps among our children and young people. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare estimates that some five million handicapped children and young people,4 at least ten per cent of our school age population, need special educational opportunities, of which there are few. Three out of four retarded children today receive no special instruction