An interesting look into the lives of a collection of individuals living in a group home for the mentally ill in Long Island in the late 1980s/early 1990s. It's amazing how so many things have changed, but so many things have stayed the same. (Content note: this book contains the r-word many times, but not as a pejorative.) ( )

Winerip combines triumph of the spirit with the harsh realities of prejudice. The mentally ill have more than just their sickness to battle. People are afraid of what they do not understand. They make assumptions that all mentally ill are violent, crude, childlike, or sexually deviant. Unlike an obvious injury like a broken leg a schizophrenic or multiple personality disorder cannot wave their affliction in your face and tell you when it will be healed. No one wants the likes of them in their neighborhood. In the pages of 9 Highland Road Winerip pulls back the curtain on the political controversies and uncovers the fear-induced prejudices about group homes for the mentally ill. He does not sugarcoat the harsh realities of childhood traumas that are at the core of some patients' initial break with reality: psychological, verbal and physical abuses in the form of violence, rape, incest and torture. What was particularly stunning were the varying degrees of responsibility families accept regarding the wellbeing of their son or daughter. Winerip also touches lightly on the problem of homelessness and delves more deeply into the miracles of modern medicine. ( )

Before reading this stunning book, I never even considered the idea of group homes being a solution for living conditions in the mentally ill community. The fact that they are cost-effective, benign to the neighbors, and can even help a mentally ill person permanently ease out of the system should convince anyone more group homes for the mentally ill should exist. Let's hope this is the new paradigm for the mentally ill in the 21st century. ( )

This book changed my mind about mental health group homes. I'd always thought I'd protest if one opened near me. This book, by a New York Times reporter who spent several years researching, describes the process to get it opened, against organized opposition by neighbors and double crossing politicians. Finally the first residents move in. Then the book follows the lives of several patients who live there. Some get better, some worse, some stay the same. The staff who live on site know their clients better than hospital staff who have more patients or patients they don't see as often, and can assess how they're doing on medication and when they might need hospitalization. Patients can ask for voluntary hospitalization when they know they need it.

He makes a convincing case that for many patients such houses are a better treatment option than hospitalization, at a much lower cost, and that they are good neighbors. Many of the people who fought hard to keep it out of their Long Island neighborhood end up supporting it. Other neighbors have no idea it's a group home for people with mental problems.

There's a lot of meticulous reporting about the red tape and general idiocy of public mental health programs. One woman is unable to see a specialist at a reduced rate because it would be $10 more a month than the state doctor - and since there's no alternative, she's kept in a more expensive facility for no good reason. Another patient can't get a new antipsychotic drug because the state hasn't authorized it unless he returns to the hospital where he won't be able to see therapists - the rules say he has to take it with hospital supervision, even though the group home staff will be able to spend more time with him than staff at the hospital.

The author mentions how few such homes exist to support the large population of mental patients. He points out that in the state of New York, there are far more group homes for the retarded than for mental patients. If such patients can live in a group home, some of them will get better and end up saving the state money. This book was written during the 90s and I'm sure if things have changed, it's for the worse. A very interesting book. ( )

Before reading this stunning book, I never even considered the idea of group homes being a solution for living conditions in the mentally ill community. The fact that they are cost-effective, benign to the neighbors, and can even help a mentally ill person permanently ease out of the system should convince anyone more group homes for the mentally ill should exist. Let's hope this is the new paradigm for the mentally ill in the 21st century. ( )